‘My dog ate it’, ‘I left it on the bus’, and ‘someone stole it’ – they were the classic excuses in our day for not handing in homework. But modern youth are increasingly blaming absent homework on technology, a survey’s revealed.

Online electronics retailer Pixmania surveyed 1000 teachers during the past 12 months and found that of the total 6.5m excuses thought to be have been heard by UK teachers each week, roughly 1.3m - 20 per cent - centred on technological problem.

The most popular tech excuse heard from pupils was that they’d done the work, but then the computer crashed and they lost it. Don’t kids learn how to make back-ups these days?

‘I lost my laptop’ and ‘I finished my homework, but then deleted it by accident’ were also used by kids. Printer problems is another justification preferred by prepubescents.

The internet figured too, an inability to connect proving a frequently offered explanation for a failure to hand in homework.

Sue Cooke, Assistant Headteacher at Wallington County Grammar School, Surrey, said: "We are definitely wising up to their tech trickery.”