Source: New Zealand Government
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says a promising term of attendance was blown in the disrupted last week of the term, where strike action took precedence over learning.
“With one week to go in Term 3 2025 regular attendance was 52.7 per cent, an improvement on 51.7 per cent last year. However, a very poor last week of term plunged the final rate to a 50.3 per cent,” Mr Seymour says.
“Strikes in the final week of term likely played a significant role in this disappointing finish. Even though students are not marked absent on strike days, we saw a clear drop-off in attendance, with the disruption of a mid-week day off prompting many to begin their holidays early.
“Almost 20,000 students were not regular attendees in Term 3, because they knocked off early. That is unacceptable. This shows that knocking off early does just as much damage as low attendance throughout the term.
“Thanks to the daily attendance dashboard we can see that about 200,000 students were absent on the last day of Term.
“PHF Science reported a late peak in seasonal respiratory illness during Term 3. In 2024 that same peak was during Term 2. Despite this difference, attendance rates would still have improved, if Kiwis took the last week of term seriously.
“Students missed 7.2 per cent of the term due to medical-related reasons in Term 3 2025. More than any other reason. This was the highest rate of medical-related absence in any term since Term 2 2022, when nationwide attendance was only 39.9 per cent.
“PHF Science reported the South Island was hit the hardest by illness. Canterbury and Chatham Islands region saw the largest drop of 7.6 percentage points from Term 3 2024, while the Otago, Southland region decreased by 3.1 percentage points. While this is useful to know, it is no excuse.
“Daily attendance reporting, and the attendance data dashboard produce more accurate, complete, and timely information. The more we define the problems, the more effective interventions can be.
“Earlier this week the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2.) passed its third reading. Schools are now legally required to have an attendance management plan (AMP) in place by the start of next year.
“The basic premise of the AMP means no child is left behind. Every student, parent, teacher and school has a role to play. Each school will develop their own AMP to suit their community and school. It means there are escalating responses for declining attendance.”
Some examples of how interventions could work are:
- 5 days absent: The school to get in touch with parents/guardians to determine reasons for absence and set expectations.
- 10 days absent: School leadership meets with parents/guardian and the student to identify barriers to attendance and develop plans to address this.
- 15 days absent: Escalating the response to the Ministry and steps to initiate prosecution of parents could be considered as a valid intervention.
“Missing the last week of school for an unjustified reason would result in a response under the AMP template,” Mr Seymour says.
“At the start of next year frontline attendance services will also be more accountable, better at effectively managing cases, and data-driven in their responses. To achieve this, they will soon have access to a new case management system and better data monitoring, and their contracts will be more closely monitored. Budget 2025 included $140 million of additional funding package to improve attendance over the next four years.
“Attending school is the first step towards achieving positive educational outcomes. Positive educational outcomes lead to better health, higher incomes, better job stability and greater participation within communities. These are opportunities that every student deserves.”
The full data is available here: https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/statistics/attendance
