Critics hit out as Luxon blames parents

National Party leader Christopher Luxon is being called ‘‘misinformed’’ after he blamed low school attendance rates on parents and poor school leadership.

‘‘Only 40% of our kids here in New Zealand go to school and no-one seems to care about it,’’ Luxon said.

However, Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti said Luxon’s understanding of attendance was ‘‘completely wrong’’. Tinetti said if a child self-isolated during Covid then they were ‘‘automatically not regularly attending’’.

Regular attendance was measured by the proportion of students who went to school at least 90% of the time. If a child missed five days of school a term then they were not regularly attending and were included within the 60% of students who did not go to school, Tinetti said.

On the AM Show yesterday, Luxon said some principals were ‘‘not focusing as strongly only on getting kids to school as they can’’.

‘‘The first thing is we’ve got to make sure the Government is actually putting resources into truancy officers, getting kids to school,’’ he said.

Less than two hours later, in an interview with Stuff, Luxon pivoted from school leaders to parents.

‘‘We’ve got to call parents to account. It’s not good enough that you just can’t wake up at seven o’clock and get your kids to school.

‘‘You had the kids, it’s your responsibility to make sure they have the education that you never had.’’

Secondary Principals’ Association Vaughan Couillault said Luxon’s comments were misinformed and misdirected.

‘‘Pointing the finger is not a solution, particularly around the work everyone has done to support students throughout Covid,’’ he said.

Couillault wanted to see a bipartisan approach to education strategy and said everyone would need to work together.

‘‘Using education as a point of conflict helps no-one,’’ he said.

South Auckland principal Stan Tiatia said school communities had been working incredibly hard to get children back into classrooms. ‘‘Three years of disruption and now we’re in our second term of school with no lockdown.

‘‘We’ve gone from 50 to 60% attendance to 80, 90%,’’ he said.

‘‘South Auckland was vilified when Covid hit. They took all this trauma,’’ he said.

‘‘Now we’re putting the pressure back on them saying we won’t provide quality health or homes or food security but still get your children to schools.’’

Luxon said he would ‘‘make no apologies’’ for his comments.

‘‘We’re not getting outcomes here in New Zealand. That’s the Government’s responsibility, it’s the schools’ responsibility, and it’s primarily a parental responsibility to show up and get your kids to school.

‘‘We’ve got to stop the excuses culture,’’ he said.

Tinetti said she accepted that attendance was a major problem in schools, but its causes were complex.

‘‘We have lost focus over the last couple of decades around the importance of schools, and that is one of the key reasons why the attendance and engagement strategy was launched in June.’’