Politics blog: May 6 - 12
Dashboard tracking school attendance data released
A new online dashboard will make more timely daily attendance data available to the public and parents, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says.
The interactive dashboard, released today, will be updated once a week to show a national average of how many students are at school on any given day. Filters can be used to show the total number of students by region or day to understand shifts in attendance over time.
“Solving our attendance crisis starts with accepting that there is a nationwide problem,” Seymour says.
“More than 330,000 students were not regularly attending school in Term 4, 2023, and in recent years the level of absence each term – be it chronic or at any other level – has been higher than before the pandemic."
High-quality attendance data is needed to help students, parents, and school communities identify absences, talk about the importance of school attendance, and measure positive change over time, Seymour says.
“The Government has set a target of ensuring 80% of students are present for more than 90% of the term by 2030. To achieve this, I’m saying to schools that they need to aspire to reach an average daily attendance rate above 94%."
Cabinet has also agreed to make it mandatory for schools to provide attendance data to the Ministry of Education daily from Term 1 2025, which will be published daily on the website.
“If the truancy crisis isn’t addressed there will be an 80-year long shadow of people who missed out on education when they were young, are less able to work, less able to participate in society, more likely to be on benefits. That's how serious this is.”
The dashboard can be accessed here.
The interactive dashboard, released today, will be updated once a week to show a national average of how many students are at school on any given day. Filters can be used to show the total number of students by region or day to understand shifts in attendance over time.
“Solving our attendance crisis starts with accepting that there is a nationwide problem,” Seymour says.
“More than 330,000 students were not regularly attending school in Term 4, 2023, and in recent years the level of absence each term – be it chronic or at any other level – has been higher than before the pandemic."
High-quality attendance data is needed to help students, parents, and school communities identify absences, talk about the importance of school attendance, and measure positive change over time, Seymour says.
“The Government has set a target of ensuring 80% of students are present for more than 90% of the term by 2030. To achieve this, I’m saying to schools that they need to aspire to reach an average daily attendance rate above 94%."
Cabinet has also agreed to make it mandatory for schools to provide attendance data to the Ministry of Education daily from Term 1 2025, which will be published daily on the website.
“If the truancy crisis isn’t addressed there will be an 80-year long shadow of people who missed out on education when they were young, are less able to work, less able to participate in society, more likely to be on benefits. That's how serious this is.”
The dashboard can be accessed here.
PM Christopher Luxon and Associate Education Minister David Seymour visit Cardinal McKeefry School in Wellington (file photo). Robert Kitchin/Stuff