Government’s says 25% of kids truant will be ok

The Herald reports:

A new attendance strategy is being launched by Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti this afternoon at Manurewa Intermediate School in South Auckland.

The strategy aims to see 70 per cent of school students at school regularly by 2024 and 75 per cent by 2026.

I thought this must be a typo. Surely not even this Government would say that the best they can do is aim for 70% of students attending school regularly by 2024. But, no that is what they are settling for.

In 2017 there were 37,904 students attending school less than 70% of the time. In 2021 this had increased to 67,687. That’s 30,000 extra kids basically not attending school.

And there are 300,000 kids not attending regularly (more than 90%).

In Term 2 of 2021 only 44% of Maori students were attending school regularly. Think what a huge difference it could make to outcomes for Maori later in life if that attendance rate was lifted to say 90%.

This is not just a problem of say 16 and 17 year olds not attending regularly. Only 69% of primary students attend regularly. 7% attend less than 70%. Their futures are probably pretty stuffed.