NZ school absentee rates causing concern

Children are missing school more in New Zealand compared with other countries and it is getting worse, a new study has found.

The study, undertaken by the Education Review Office (ERO), collected surveys of more than 2600 students between year 4 and 13 and more than 1100 parents of school-aged children.

It found while Covid-19 had badly disrupted attendance, between 2015 and 2019 the percentage of learners regularly attending school dropped from 70% to 58% – well below other international averages.

‘‘We need to urgently turn around New Zealand’s falling attendance rate if we want to see our children achieve,’’ said Ruth Shinoda, head of ERO’s education evaluation centre.

The study found many New Zealand parents and students did not prioritise going to school, with four in 10 parents comfortable with their child missing more than a week of school a term, Shinoda said.

Two-thirds of parents would keep their children home for family, cultural, or special events like a wedding or funeral – a further 12% would keep children home for their birthday.

About a third of parents (35%) would also be willing to take children out of school on holiday for a week or more, or to take part in a sporting event (41%).

Other reasons included keeping their child out of school for mental health challenges (46%), to avoid bullying (38%), or because the child was tired (10%).

Student attitudes were also partly to blame, with about a third of students not seeing going to school every day as that important and another third citing being tired as a barrier.

Missing school added up to a lot of lost learning time, Shinoda said.

‘‘If students miss a week of