- 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.
Schools would develop their truancy plans with the Ministry of Education, attendance services, and government and non-government agencies.
“Schools will have to play their part in setting a good example as well. This means not taking teacher-only days during term time.”
Seymour said it had always been the policy that a school required permission from the Ministry of Education for a teacher-only day, he was only “enforcing it.”
He also said he reserved the right to look at an infringement scheme in the future if this approach did not work.
Seymour had also directed the Ministry of Education to take a more active role in the prosecution process.
“I have asked the Ministry to collect data on when a school is open or closed for instruction for the full day, and for each year group, during term time,” he said.
“Any student who reaches a clearly defined threshold of days absent will trigger an appropriate and proportionate response from their school and the Ministry.
“If we get to a case where a student misses more than 15 days of term … that’s what we call chronic absence.”
That would then trigger the Government and Ministry of Education to consider fines or wrap-around support services.
“I’ve directed the Ministry of Education, with the active co-operation of the Ministry for Social Development, Oranga Tamariki, Police, Kainga Ora, and Te Puni Kokiri to develop robust information sharing agreements so that staff can share appropriate information once a student has been identified as needing support.”
Seymour said there are people who can afford the fine and would just pay it, and that was “regrettable.”
He said in “most of Europe, fining was a normal thing to do.”
Seymour acknowledged were some students who could not attend school and a prosecution would not work in those cases. And there were others who were flouting the system, and that’s where prosecution could work, he said.
Seymour said New Zealand school attendance rates were low by international standards. The Government’s student attendance target is 80% of students attending classes regularly by 2030.
Regular school attendance is defined as students being present for more than 90% of the term.
Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.
