Ministry of Education truancy statistics: Canterbury principal questions legitimacy of sick days

A Canterbury principal believes parents taking their children out hunting and skiing may be partly to blame for low school attendance rates.

Monday and Friday attendance statistics for high school students are falling this year, Darfield High School principal Andy England told Mike Hosking this morning.

He said attendance was lowest on the days before or after a weekend.

A school survey found 47 per cent of parents valued life skills with the family, as well as education.

“We’ve got a few parents I think probably take the kids out for a long weekend hunt or ski or something else on a Friday,” England said.

Figures from the Ministry of Education show Friday attendance peaked at 85 per cent this year with a low of 72.5 per cent over King’s Birthday weekend.

“From last term we were 91 per cent [attendance] Tuesday to Thursday, 89 per cent for Monday and 87 per cent on a Friday,” England said.

“The sickness thing is interesting isn’t it, because are you sick on a Monday? Why would you have more people sick on a Monday than a Tuesday for example?”

He said it was too difficult to test whether students’ claims of illness were legitimate.

“It’s like a rotating door with so many people coming and going and I think, sickness, we can’t ask people for evidence.”

Statistics from Education Counts also found attendance has decreased by 11.1 per cent since before the Covid pandemic, with 61.7 per cent of students attending more than 90 per cent of term one this year.

England believed schools needed to reassess their approach to education as parents look to homeschool their children for a few days each week.

“We’ve sort of got to look at our model of education because ever since Covid, parents have been a lot more picky consumers in every aspect of life.”

This was not a bad idea for families who were willing and motivated to teach kids their own way, he said.

“I’m hearing more parents saying, well, we want to homeschool one day, two days a week, and at the moment the models are not really there for that sort of learning. But in some ways it can be quite helpful.”