Big jump in children not attending school

The number of children missing from the education system has almost doubled since October 2021, new data shows.

There are now more than 8600 children aged 5 to 16 who are not receiving any education.

‘‘It’s unacceptable,’’ Auckland principal Karl Vasau said. ‘‘I’m absolutely concerned for these children. We need our kids to be in school for their health and the health of their community.’’

Non-enrolment has jumped 70% so far this year. In October 2021, there were 4318 students between the ages of 5 and 16 who were not enrolled in any official education. In January, that number was 4949. By May, it had risen to 8602.

‘‘We’ve been able to track down a few families, but there are a number of children where I have no idea where they are,’’ Vasau, the principal of Rowandale

School in Manurewa, said. If students are absent for a month with no explanation, they are removed from the school roll and referred to the Ministry of Education’s attendance service.

The ministry then tries to track down the children and make a re-enrolment plan.

‘‘Around this time in the year, we would usually have a roll of 640. Now we’re down to a roll of just 600,’’ Vasau said.

These aren’t just kids wagging class. Whole families can move away without a day’s notice and teachers go to students’ houses and find them empty, he said.

Henderson Intermediate principal Wendy Esera said many parents didn’t even have money for phone credit.

‘‘When you ring their emergency contact numbers, none of those are working. We come to a dead end. There’s no way of contacting them. ‘‘We are going to have children lost from the system. It will be a huge job to sort this out,’’ she said.

The number of kids out of school has been on the rise for the past five years. Since 2017, the number of non-enrolled students has more than quadrupled.

Malcolm Milner, principal at Balmoral School, said schools had been thrown adrift.

‘‘If you look over the 25 years I’ve been a principal, the services to schools have dropped. We no longer have public health nurses, we no longer have visiting teachers who know the families and the area.’’

Milner wanted to see a stronger focus on the school and its relationship with its community, rather than contractedout attendance services.

Riki Tetaina, the principal at Newton Central School, agrees.

‘‘Compared to other years, our non-enrolments have increased by 100% – probably more than that. It’s gone from two to three children a year to six or 10 children. We need to develop relationships with families and children. This is going to take a significant period of time to address,’’ he said.

Earlier this year, the Government launched a strategy to tackle the long decline in regular attendance and engagement in schools.

‘‘This will build on the $88 million attendance package announced as part of Budget 2022, that includes $40 million for a Regional Response fund and further improvements to the Attendance Service and Alternative Education,’’ Ministry of Education spokesperson Sean Teddy said. The strategy would redesign attendance services to bring them closer to the needs of school communities, Teddy said.

‘‘South Auckland, the Bay of Plenty/Waiariki and Wellington already have in place a redesigned Attendance Service.

‘‘Tai Tokerau, Nelson/Marlborough/West Coast and Canterbury have started the redesigned contracting process by working with school leaders, mana whenua and the community.’’