Schools won't be able to hold teacher-only days during term time and parents of students absent for 15 days could be prosecuted, Associate Education Minister David Seymour has announced in a new truancy crackdown.
The government this year brought in daily attendance reporting, alongside changes to public health guidelines on when students are too sick to attend. It has announced a target for attendance of 80 percent of students present for 90 percent of the term.
"Any student who reaches a clearly defined threshold of days absent will trigger an appropriate and proportionate response from their school and the Ministry," Seymour said.
Schools must have a stepped attendance response (STAR) plan in place by the beginning of the 2026 school year.
Seymour set out an example:
- Five days absent: School contacts parents/guardians to determine a reason and set expectations
- 10 days absent: School leaders meet with parents/guardians and student to develop a plan to address barriers to attendance and "the obligation goes onto services such as attendance, Oranga Tamariki and the local police"
- 15 days absent: Ministry takes over the response, including possible prosecution of parents
Each school would also be asked to share attendance information with Oranga Tamariki, police, and MSD, he said.
"Where a student misses more than 15 days per term - or they're less than 70 percent - that's what we call chronic absence, that's around 8 percent of all students nationwide. That's where we need to start looking at options such as fining parents or wraparound support," he said.
Prosecution could mean lengthy court processes, and Seymour said he would also look at bringing in and infringement regime with fines for parents if that approach did not work.
Fines were quite normal in European countries with better attendance records than New Zealand, and was something attendance officers had been asking for.
"I've talked to attendance officers who have repeatedly tried to contact parents, they're being ignored, they're being told school's not important, that they don't want to engage. And ultimately I think that parent has an obligation to engage and cooperate.
"I think it's fair to say that the problem of parents who just don't want to cooperate is quite widespread."
While it would be up to the school to develop its own STAR plan, the government would be providing best-practice templates. Seymour suggested a unified approach would be preferred.
"We need to ensure that we have a standardised scheme of what the obligations are of schools right across the country," he said.
"I certainly wouldn't accept a school whose goal was to have students at school 40 percent of the time. The government's goal is 80 percent. We recognise that we need to start where we are but ... everybody has an obligation."
He also was seeking more funding from next year's Budget to boost the ministry's enforcement capabilities.
"The ministry will make sure that it has the capacity to enforce it and that's part of what we're going to be doing in Budget bids at the moment. We spend about $47m a year on attendance services, we're going to be potentially increasing that. We also give operational grants to state schools that they can use, and many do, actually choose to employ people for the purposes of attendance."
Teacher-only day crackdown
Schools would also be unable to take teacher-only days during term time, instead booking those during school holidays if needed.
"It's hard to tell students it's important to show up if the school then decides to close itself on days it should be open, that's why we're enforcing the rules ... it's actually always been the rule, we're just enforcing it," he said.
"I have asked the ministry to collect data on when a school is open or closed for instruction for the full day, and for each year group, during term time."
It was critical lost teaching time was made up, he said.
Seymour said teacher-only days were legally only allowed to be held out of term time unless authorised by the Minister of Education.
The next phase of improving attendance rates would be further understanding why students did not go to school.
"I've directed the Ministry of Education, with the active co-operation of the Ministry for Social Development, Oranga Tamariki, Police, Kainga Ora, and Te Puni Kokiri to develop robust information sharing agreements so that staff can share appropriate information once a student has been identified as needing support.