David Seymour warns of prosecutions this year in school truancy crackdown

Associate Education Minister David Seymour. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Act leader David Seymour says there will “almost certainly” be prosecutions against parents of absent students this year as the Government intensifies its crack down on school truancy.

Around 11.3% of students were chronically absent from school in term 4 last year, equating to around 93,000 young people. Chronically absent means a student attends 70% of school or less.

Seymour, who is the associate Education Minister, says the Ministry of Education was now “open for business” for schools that wanted to pursue penalties against parents and caregivers.

Fines range from $30 for every day the student is absent, up to $300 for the first offence, and up to $3000 for a second or subsequent infringement.

But he categorically ruled out penalties for families facing poverty, illness and other barriers, saying the purpose of the scheme was not to add to “people’s woes”.

Instead, the scheme would focus on parents and caregivers who “won’t” send their children to school rather than “can’t”.

“We are going to put in place consequences for the worst offenders, not people who can’t get their kids to school, but people who won’t.”

In terms of prosecutions, this would equate to a “very small minority” of the parents of truant kids, he said.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Associate Education Minister David Seymour arrive for a visit to Cardinal McKeefry School in Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The Ministry of Education has long been able to prosecute parents but Seymour said that had not happened over the past five years.

“What we’re saying is we are now prepared to take them if necessary,” Seymour said.

“Last year I directed the ministry to exercise its powers and take a more active role in prosecutions to make them viable. I encourage school leaders to seek that support when all other measures have failed.”

Budget 2025 included $140m in funding for school attendance services. Most of this – $123m – would go towards setting up a new attendance service.

The country would be divided into about 80 regions and each would have a single attendance service contracted, Seymour said.

The remaining $17m in funding will go towards existing frontline attendance services.

The Ministry of Education would proactively contact attendance service providers and schools to ensure parents who repeatedly refused to send their children to school were referred to the ministry, he said.

Ramping up enforcement to tackle the “truancy crisis” and increasing school attendance rates is part of Act’s coalition agreement with National. The Government has a target of 80% of students present for more than 90% of the term.

The latest data shows 58.1% of students attended classes regularly (at least 90% of the time) in term 4 last year. This is higher than the same term in 2023 (53%) but below pre-Covid levels of 64.5% in 2019.

Seymour said around 10% of students were absent for 15 days or more in a school term. These students would trigger a “red light” in the attendance framework, he said.

“At this point, prosecution would be considered a valid intervention. This means every day at school is important, and interventions will follow if absences build up.”

Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.