Canty schools lose truancy firm
More than 250 Canterbury schools will be without attendance or truancy services when the current contract expires in six weeks.
The news comes as school absence hit a four-year high in term 1, with just under half of Christchurch’s 50,000 students regularly attending.
Te Ora Hou Ō tautahi has run K3 Attendance Service for 10 years and currently has a caseload of more than 700. These are children who have been referred due to their nonattendance (222) or they are not enrolled at any school (516).
The Papanui-based organisation works with 151 state and state-integrated schools in greater Christchurch – and 267 across Canterbury – but its contract ends on December 21, and staff say there are no plans to extend the service or put it out to tender.
The K3 programme is funded by the Ministry of Education (MoE) and is one of 43 attendance services across the country.
Te Ora Hou Ō tautahi was awarded the tender after Christchurch District Truancy Services was disestablished in February 2012. The nine-year contract expired at the end of 2021 but as it was winding up, the ministry approached it to ‘‘provide an interim service’’. This was for six months, but a further six-month extension was given in June.
Jono Campbell, Te Ora Hou Ō tautahi manager, has written to more than 200 schools to alert them to the situation.
‘‘Schools have advised us that they have had limited communication from the Ministry of Education regarding the future of the attendance service, hence we have taken it on ourselves to provide you with an update,’’ he said.
‘‘The indicative timeframe for the release of the MoE attendance tender was August. However, as of today no tender has been released.’’
Given the timeframe – which would require a 20-working day response period and a two to four week decision-making process – it ‘‘seems unlikely that a decision
on future provision will be made before the start of 2023’’, he said.
The ministry, based in Wellington, was approached on Friday morning but said it was unable to provide comment as it was Canterbury Anniversary Day.
Te Ora Hou Ō tautahi would now work with schools ‘‘in the event of further delays to look at what is needed for the start of 2023’’, Campbell said.
‘‘The delay sits with the MoE national service in Wellington, not locally.’’
Simon Britten, Te Ora Hou Ō tautahi project manager, said the service could be delivered by one or multiple providers. Our contract will expire next month, and we’re not aware of any provision beyond that,’’ he said.
‘‘We understand from the Ministry of Education, the intention is to continue the current delivery model but with a procurement process to test the market and select either a provider for all of Canterbury or multiple providers for different parts of Canterbury.’’
The ministry terms chronic absence as when a student attends school for 70% or less of available half-days.
In Christchurch City, the percentage of chronic absence in term 1 was as follows: 2022 – 10.9% 2021 – 4.7% 2020 – 5.9% 2019 – 4.3%.
Attendance across New Zealand was low in term 1, with at least half of school students failing to regularly attend.
The percentage rate of regular attendance for each region in term 1 was: Tai Tokerau – 34.1% Auckland – 46.5% Waikato – 42% Bay of Plenty, Waiariki – 42.9% Hawke’s Bay, Tairā whiti – 47.5% Taranaki, Whanganui, Manawatu – 46.4% Wellington – 47.4% Nelson, Marlborough, West Coast – 50% Canterbury and Chatham Islands – 49.7% Otago, Southland – 49.0%.
According to a report by the Education Review Office (ERO) published last week, the percentage of learners regularly attending school has fallen almost every year since 2011.
Attendance peaked in 2015 when 70% of students attended.
The ERO found that although most parents valued school and thought it was important for their child, 8% said school was ‘‘only somewhat important, not that important, or not important at all for their child’s future’’.
Fewer learners saw regular school attendance as important. A third (33%) said attending school every day ‘‘was either somewhat important, not that important, or not important at all’’.