Ananova:

Plans for parents to be notified by text message when children play truant had to be scrapped after teachers admitted they didn't know how to send them.

Local education authorities in Cologne, Germany, dropped the plans after it was found teachers would have had to go back to school to learn how to send text messages.

Head of the local liberal party FDP, Uli Breite, who wanted the message system introduced, said: "We wanted a simple way for teachers to inform parents if a child was absent.

"When I heard that we would need to arrange 'user instruction' I could not believe it. I was told that many teachers wouldn't know how to send an SMS."