School attendance: Half of students regularly attended school in term 4

Just over half of New Zealand school students regularly attended school in term 4 last year, figures released today show.

While that’s an improvement on the preceding terms, it remains lower than the same time in 2021 when 65 per cent of students regularly went to school.

The Ministry of Education said the main driver of the 50.6 per cent attendance rate continued to be Covid, resulting in higher levels of absence for both students and staff.

Regular attendance is defined as attending greater than 90 per cent of class time or missing no more than one day each fortnight.

School attendance hit a record low in term two last year - the peak of the Covid outbreak - with only 40 per cent of students regularly going to school.

The figures were slightly better for term 3 with 46 per cent of students regularly attending class. That was down from 63.1 per cent during the same period in 2021.

Chronic absence - attending class 70 per cent or less - remained stable, with 12.4 per cent of students in that category in term 4 compared to 12.8 per cent of students in term 3 last year - up from 8.8 per cent in the same term in 2021.

The Ministry of Education said term 3 and 4′s figures were driven by the high prevalence of Covid-19 in the community and the advisory that anyone who was a close contact or felt unwell should stay home.

Unjustified absences increased slightly in term 4 from 6.5 per cent of time in term 3 to 7.2 per cent in term 4.

Tai Tokerau (Northland) had the lowest regular attendance rate at 38.9 per cent, while Otago and Southland had the highest at 56.6 per cent.

In February, Education Minister Jan Tinetti announced a $74 million package to increase resources for Attendance Services and fund 82 new attendance officers to work with at-risk students, their parents and schools.

Last year the Ministry of Education launched an attendance and engagement strategy with 13 priorities to increase attendance and engagement.

By 2026, the ministry wants to increase the number of children attending regularly to 75 per cent.

Tinetti said the new funding, which will be part of this year’s Budget, will go towards more attendance officers and supporting the Attendance Service in helping reach that target.

The Ministry of Education has admitted it doesn’t know how many attendance officers - or truancy officers - are in schools or how much money is being spent on them. Employing such officers is up to the discretion of individual schools and targets chronically-truant students.

Tinetti said the new funding would come from a national level and help schools and parents with students who are not regularly attending and at risk of becoming chronically truant (defined as missing at least three days per fortnight).

About $28m would also go towards the Attendance Service, which already works with students who are chronically absent or not enrolled at all, and this will help it to support 3000 more young people.

About $8m would also go towards improving attendance data.