As thousands not at school

they don’t attend, they do no work.’’

That meant many children who hadn’t been to school for more than a year didn’t get included in that number, because they’d been enrolled in school for a short blip.

‘‘It’s a cycle. It just goes around in a big loop,’’ Crompton said.

Pat Newman, chairperson of Tai Tokerau Principals’ Association, said the number also didn’t match up with what he was seeing in Northland schools. ‘‘It doesn’t seem to be an accurate number if it’s for all of New Zealand. I suspect the real number is much higher,’’ he said.

Newman said he’d seen an improvement in the number of kids who had jumped ship from the education system in the past few months, but more needed to be done.

‘‘If we don’t know where they are, we don’t know if they are even alive,’’ he said.

Newman said the reasons children may be out of education for more than a year were complex, but the main player was poverty.

‘‘It’s transport, it’s food, it’s families who are struggling with Oranga Tamariki,’’ he said.

Associate Minister for Education Jan Tinetti said dealing with the deep-rooted causes of chronic non-attendance was ‘‘extremely complex and often requires inter-agency collaboration’’.

‘‘The impacts from the disruption of Covid in late 2021 have also contributed to the complexities of addressing nonenrolled referrals,’’ she said.

The Government launched the Attendance and Engagement Strategy in June.

As part of Budget 2022, Attendance Services also received an extra $6 million over four years to help address pressures. It was part of a broader $88m package to increase attendance.

‘‘This extra funding allows providers to increase capacity to support schools to effectively manage attendance, reduce unjustified absence rates and non-enrolment,’’ Tinetti said.