ZAGREB, Croatia (AFP) – Croatian children will find it more difficult to mess up in school and keep it secret this year as information about their performance will be available to parents at the touch of a mobile phone button, an official said Friday.

Thanks to a programme financed by the education ministry, parents can opt to receive reports about their children’s school achievements and attendance via SMS text messages, Drazen Vikic Topic of the education ministry said.

“Parents will receive general information on school events, activities as well as on children’s behaviour and marks,” he said.

“They will also be informed about children’s absence and homework assignments.”

To use the programme called “SMS school information”, parents will have to pay 30 kunas (four euros, five dollars) per month.

A total of 115 primary and secondary schools will introduce the programme as of this school year.

The pilot project was introduced last year in a Zagreb high school.

“The results were excellent. This proved to be a great new way to quickly and easily access all information,” Nada Maric, the school headmaster told the Vjesnik daily.

“If a child does not appear in school the parent will know within 10 minutes.”

It is a unique Croatian product, said Ante Caric, an official of the Kate-Kom company, which developed the software.

The programme has already been sold to Russia while negotiations are ongoing to sell it in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Iran, Slovakia and Slovenia, he added.