Thousands of students miss almost half a term

Thousands of students have missed nearly half a school term in a year marred by two major lockdowns.

Attendance data and analysis released yesterday by the Ministry of Education reveal the extent to which Covid-19 disrupted some students’ schooling and exacerbated existing inequalities in the system.

Younger children, students from low-decile schools, and Ma¯ ori and Pasifika students were all disproportionately affected, with the second Auckland lockdown creating a cumulative effect for schools in the city.

After the national lockdown, nearly 17,000 students had still not attended a day of school two weeks after schools were able to fully reopen. Of those, about 4300 were still not at school another two weeks later.

Schools fully reopened on August 31 but nearly 4600 students still had not returned four weeks later. Two-thirds of slow returners were from decile 1 and 2 schools, where the ministry said a combination of Covid-19 fear and economic and housing stress due to the pandemic contrived to keep students away.

‘‘This could be due to instances such as students remaining home due to concerns around catching

Covid-19 at school, particularly when there are elderly or immuno-compromised family members in the household; barriers to attendance such as lack of transport, insecure housing, or lack of uniforms; or students absent from school because they are caring for family members or [undertaking] employment,’’ ministry chief economist Andrew Webber wrote in a report released with the data.

Although there was anecdotal evidence some senior students were missing class to work or care for family, nearly all the students who had not returned were primary-aged, he said.

There was a sharp increase in chronic absence in the younger years, with 14-16 per cent of primary and intermediate pupils falling in this category, compared with 8-10 per cent in 2019.

The ministry’s Katrina Casey said the concern was that children missed out on the basics of reading and writing, meaning they struggled to learn as they got older.

There were some bright spots in the data. When students could go to class in person, overall attendance was up – bucking a steep decline in attendance rates over the past six years.

The proportion of students attending school regularly during the last seven weeks of term 2 – when schools were open – was 64 per cent. That was up from 58 per cent in term 2 last year.