One London council's initiative to encourage parents not to take their children on holiday during term time could be duplicated in other parts of Britain, giving families a discount on peak holiday prices.

The Department of Education and Skills is to meet on Wednesday with Kingston's chief education welfare officer, Ming Zhang, who last week launched a scheme in his borough to cope with the high levels of absenteeism caused by parents taking their children on holiday in term time.

Zhang said he had received a large number of enquiries about the scheme, in which travel agencies American Express Travel Services and Travelharbour plus hotel group Superclubs are offering discounts to families travelling in peak season of 5-10 per cent. Other councils have approached him to find out the details, he added.

'Many parents say they have worked so hard during the year they deserve a break, but they can't afford a holiday in the peak season,' said Zhang. 'The price difference between holidays in the peak and in school times is huge.' He added that in Kingston, about 2,500 days were lost each year by children going on holiday in school time, compared with 800 days lost to truancy.

Superclubs, an all-inclusive hotel group, said it had received so much interest in the promotion for its Caribbean properties that it was trying to hook up with a tour operator to enable parents to get flight discounts as well.

Keith Betton, head of corporate affairs at the Association of British Travel Agents, said it would be easy to duplicate the scheme around the country. 'Any local council could do this and set up a similar thing with local travel companies,' he said. But he added that the difference in prices between term time and the summer holidays could be as much as 30 per cent, making a 5-10 per cent discount a fairly small compensation.

Winter holidays are affected too. 'A lot of people also take their children away in term time as they want to go on skiing holidays and it is quite hard to get them in half term, which is very short,' he added.

The law says parents can only take their children on holiday in term time if they receive permission from the school. If they do not get permission but still take their children away, the child's absence is classified as unauthorised and equates to truancy, said Zhang. 'In theory, we could prosecute a parent in that case,' he said. 'We haven't done this so far but we now need to look into this matter seriously.'

In May, Patricia Amos became the first parent to be jailed for condoning truancy.

A spokeswoman for travel agency Amex said it had decided to offer a 5 per cent discount to families living in Kingston. 'We would be open to talking to any other council about a similar scheme,' she said.