Regular attendance, defined as more than 90 per cent of class time, dropped to 39.9 per cent in term 2 - a 20-point drop on 2021. Photo / Thinkstock
The number of children regularly attending school plummeted to a record low of 40 per cent in term 2 as Covid-19 ripped through the country.
It comes as a major report lands today showing attendance rates here are much lower than in comparable countries with “hugely concerning” findings according to sector representatives calling for urgent fixes.
Record low levels of school attendance hit Māori and Pasifika in term 2 hardest with just 27 per cent and 26 per cent respectively attending school regularly (attending more than 90 per cent of the time).
There was also a dramatic difference based on socioeconomic factors, with just 25 per cent of deciles 1 and 2 attending regularly compared to just under 50 per cent of deciles 9 and 10.
The latest Ministry of Education data showed overall 39.9 per cent of all students were attending school regularly in term 2.
This was down from 57.7 per cent in term 2 2019 pre-Covid, 64.2 per cent in 2020 and 59.7 per cent in 2021. In term 1 this year it was 46 per cent.
In term 2, regular attendance decreased to the lowest since 2011 for all decile groups. Higher decile groups decreased slightly more than lower deciles from 2021 to 2022: deciles 9-10 decreased 21.4 percentage points while deciles 1-2 decreased 18.5 percentage points.
In its report, the ministry said during term 2 there was a rapid increase in Covid-19 cases in the community which remained high during the term.
These absences made up 8.6 per cent of all term time in term 2 2022, up from 5.3 per cent in 2021 (3.3 percentage point difference).
“The increase in medical absences indicates that students and their parents have chosen to follow Ministry of Health advice i.e. for students to stay home if unwell,” the report said.
At the same time, rates of irregular absence, moderate absence, and chronic absence increased and were at their highest since 2011.
Since 2021, irregular attendance has increased 7.2 percentage points; moderate absence has increased 6.5 percentage points; and chronic absence has increased 6.1 percentage points.
Chronic absence (attending 70 per cent or less of the term) increased to 13.8 per cent in term 2 - up from 7.3 per cent in the same term in 2019, pre-Covid.
Justified absences (including illness) made up 10.4 per cent of time in term 2 2022 - up from 6.7 per cent in 2021, and unjustified absences made up 5.9 per cent of time in term 2 2022, up from 4.6 per cent in 2021.
Associate Minister of Education Jan Tinetti said term 2 data was an “outlier” due to the Covid outbreak and with public health messaging encouraging people to stay home if they were sick or a contact.
On wider issues including the massive inequities, Tinetti said the Attendance Strategy was designed to re-engage students and the Government was on track to meet the first target of 70 per cent regular attendance by next year.
Tinetti said she did not believe a punitive approach was needed for parents that kept their children home.
“We need to raise awareness of how important education is I would really like parents to understand that education is the ability for people to have choices. And for the children to have choices. We all need to understand that this is a society response.”
National Party leader Christopher Luxon said the statistics were “appalling”.
“Even more heartbreaking is that more than 100,000 Kiwi kids are still chronically absent from school, meaning they are missing three out of every ten days – up from 38,000 in 2017.”
Luxon said research showed every day of school missed had a negative impact and children who did not attend school regularly were five times more likely to fall behind in reading, writing and maths.
The data also comes after a recent pilot programme of new standards as part of NCEA found just 2 per cent of decile 1 students passed the writing component.
Overall just 64 per cent passed the reading standard, 34 per cent writing and 56 per cent numeracy, Te Reo Matatini (Māori language literacy) at 24 per cent and Pāngarau (Māori language numeracy) at just 18 per cent.
“Without urgent action now, this Government stands to fail an entire generation of children who are falling further behind with every passing week. This should be the Government’s top priority in education.”
Luxon said a National government would “relentlessly target attendance by setting clear expectations for schools and parents that kids not going to school is no longer an option”.
“We will hold ourselves, schools and parents accountable for ensuring that kids are regularly in school.”
Green Party education spokesman Teanau Tuiono said the data clearly showed how the pandemic had exacerbated inequities and that lessons had not been learned.
He said a long-term plan needed to be developed to deal with Covid-19 and other illnesses to ensure the inequities are not repeated.
Education Minister Chris Hipkins said while Covid-19 had played a role there were some children that would need a greater level of intervention and parents needed to “play their part”.
“We’re absolutely focused on doing that. But for a lot of the absence that we’re seeing, it’s just a degree of complacency that’s crept into the system over time, and we need to turn that around.
“We need parents to play their part in getting kids back into school.”
In May, the Ministry of Education published an attendance and engagement strategy called setting out 13 priorities to increase attendance and engagement with targets.
By 2026, the Ministry wants to increase the number of children attending regularly (over 90 per cent of the term, or on average more than 9 days a fortnight) to 75 per cent.
The latest data comes as an Education Review Office report released today warned New Zealand had worse school attendance than other English-speaking countries and many parents didn’t care if their children missed classes.
The office said it found four in 10 parents were comfortable with their child missing a week or more of school per term and a third of students did not see going to school every day as that important.
The report, Missing Out: Why Aren’t Our Children Going to School?, said even missing two days of class per term was linked to lower achievement.
It found families were keeping children home due to illness, but also because they were tired, in poor mental health, or being bullied.
It recommended schools stress the importance of regular attendance, alert parents when children were not attending, and make school more enjoyable.
The report said regular attendance, defined as attending more than 90 per cent of the time, fell from 70 per cent of students in 2015 to just 58 per cent in 2019 before reaching 64 per cent in 2020 and 60 per cent in 2021.
It said in Australia 73 per cent of students attended regularly in 2019 and regular attendance was above 80 per cent in the UK, Republic of Ireland, USA and Ontario in Canada where benchmarks for regular attendance ranged from 89-92 per cent and the figures dated from 2015/16 through to 2020/21.
Ruth Shinoda, head of ERO’s Education Evaluation Centre, said New Zealand’s attendance was much lower than other countries and was falling.
“Missing school adds up. If students miss a week of school each term by the time they are 16 they will have missed a year of schooling.
“That’s a lot of learning time lost. There is no safe level of non-attendance, even just missing two days a term is linked to lower achievement.”
Shinoda said they found many parents and students were not prioritising school.
“Two-thirds of parents would keep their children home for a special event and around a third would take their children out of school for a holiday or sporting event.
“More than one in 10 parents would keep their child home for their birthday. In addition to this, a third of students said they want to miss school because they have more enjoyable things to do at home.”
Shinoda said students who missed school were more likely to report poor relationships with teachers and peers.
Along with the Government’s attendance strategy, Shinoda said more work needed to be done with parents, making school more engaging, addressing access barriers and helping students catch up.
Post Primary Teachers’ Association Te Wehengarua president Melanie Webber said the findings were “hugely concerning” and highlighted the need for more pastoral and guidance staff in schools to identify and work with struggling students.
“Relationships with students’ whānau and caregivers are hugely important – but teachers simply don’t have the time or the special skills that are often needed.”
Teachers were being overworked and needed more time and resources to make schools great places to be.
“The findings of this report are heartbreaking and have extremely serious implications for the future of Aotearoa New Zealand. We are committed to working with the government on effective solutions.”
Teachers union NZEI Te Riu Roa president Liam Rutherford said lower class sizes, more teacher aides and much greater access to learning support were needed to turn around attendance issues.
