The attendance service in charge of addressing truancy in Northland has rejected claims it is ineffective.
In a statement to the Northern Advocate the Te Tai Tokerau Attendance Service said it had a low repeat referral rate and urged for the reasons behind truancy to be researched.
The service, run by the Te Tai Tokerau Iwi Consortium, started last year after it was awarded the Northland contract following a Ministry of Education restructure of the attendance services.
In the same year Northland overtook Gisborne for the highest truancy rate in the country.
In 2014 the attendance service had gone from strength-to-strength and demonstrated improved performance, the Iwi Consortium said in the statement.
"The service is having sustainable results when returning young people to education," the statement said.
"The repeat referral rate for students coming to the attention of the Te Tai Tokerau Attendance Service is the lowest since February."
"In August this year the Tai Tokerau Attendance Service closed 55 non-enrolled cases, compared with three in August 2013." In the year ending June, the service received over 1200 referrals.
President of Te Tai Tokerau Principals Association, Pat Newman, last week said from his experience the service was trying hard but was not effective enough because a large number of students were still not in school. The new online portal schools had to use to communicate with the attendance service can be a hassle, Mr Newman said.
However, the portal is managed by the Ministry of Education and not the attendance service.
A Ministry of Education report snapshot of 2013 found 6.7 per cent, the equivalent of 1931 students, of Northland's 28,822 students had unjustified absences over the week recorded.
The report also found during that week 2.1 per cent, or the equivalent of 605 students, were truant from school for three or more days, more than double the national average of 1 per cent.
"The group said it would be constructive to research the reasons students were not engaging with schooling or why schools were having difficulty connecting with students," the Iwi Consortium said.
"The consortium is anxious that research is undertaken as soon as possible to determine and inform solutions ... "
The Tai Tokerau Attendance Service covers a catchment of 156 schools.