A government document says the pandemic has hit school attendance among five- and six year olds especially hard.
Negative impacts of Covid-19 on attendance were heavily concentrated in primary school students, especially in Year 1-2, the document said. Photo: 123RF
The recently-released Budget paper also shows the Education Ministry warned the government last year that the pandemic was substantially worsening inequities for Māori and Pacific students, especially in Auckland.
"Students are most likely to have reduced their attendance in response to Covid-19 if they attend a low decile school, are in earlier year levels, are Pacific or Māori, or participate in Māori medium education," the document said.
"We are also concerned about the impact of Covid-19 and lockdowns and attendance and engagement for disabled learners and learners from socio-economically
disadvantaged backgrounds. The problem is growing in both volume and breadth and is impacted by a range of in-school and home and community factors."
The report said 40 percent of the children with attendance problems had not had such problems prior to the pandemic.
"What this shows is that while the impacts of Covid-19 and lockdowns on attendance and engagement are disproportionately impacting our Māori and Pacific young people, the effects are also being felt by individual students who previously had good attendance patterns."
The report also said attendance among the youngest children was most affected by the pandemic.
"Negative impacts of Covid-19 on attendance are heavily concentrated in primary school students, especially in Years 1-2," the document said.
Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti. Photo: RNZ / Dan Cook
Campaign begins to lift school attendance
The government is launching a marketing campaign to lift the country's poor record of tamariki attendance at school.
"Every school day is a big day" is the tagline of the marketing effort which will be accompanied by the distribution of information packs for schools to help them get their message out to their local communities.
In June the government announced its targets for a dramatic improvement in school attendance.
School attendance has been declining since 2015. At present, almost half of the country's tamariki do not regularly attend school.
"Regular attendance" is defined as missing none or one day of school a fortnight.
That trend has been further accelerated by Covid-19. Only two in five pupils attend regularly - or just 40 percent. A Ministry of Education survey found that only 5 percent of New Zealanders considered attendance a top-of-mind issue.
"There are no quick fixes to attendance especially where there is chronic non-attendance," Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti said.
Chronic non-attendance meant a child attended 70 percent or less of the time in a fortnight.
"There can be many barriers but we are working with schools to help turn our school attendance rates around," Tinetti said.
The government's goal was to achieve an attendance rate of 75 percent by 2026.
"I want to see the number of kids attending school regularly increased from 59.7 percent in 2021 to 70 percent in 2024 and 75 percent in 2026," she said.
Tinetti said it was important parents, teachers, students and communities worked together to try and solve the problems.
There was a legal requirement for parents to send their children to school, but the campaign sought to be positive about why children are required to be there, Tinetti told Checkpoint.
She said it was "critically important" that parents sent their children to school and the campaign would highlight all the great things that happened during the school day.
Focus groups indicated that five to 10 year olds, the age group with the highest absences, were staying at home with parents instead of turning up at school, she said.
Each school and each community would know what the answers were for their region, but that could include things like having someone pick up the child from home to ensure they got to school, Tinetti said.
There was a legal requirement for parents to send their children to school, but the campaign sought to be positive about why children are required to be there, Tinetti told Checkpoint.
It was "critically important" that parents sent their children to school and the campaign would highlight all the great things that happened during the school day, she said.
Focus groups indicated that five to 10 year olds, the age group with the highest absences, were staying at home with parents instead of turning up at school, she said.
Each school and each community would know what the answers were for their region, but that could include things like having someone pick up the child from home to ensure they got to school, Tinetti said.
"It's going to highlight the importance of school and it's going to do it in a way that highlights all the great things that happen during a school day" - Jan Tinetti
Secondary Principals' Association president and Papatoetoe High School principal Vaughan Couillaut agreed that attendance was at an all-time low due to Covid-19.
"If someone follows the public health advice at the moment and isolates at home when they've got Covid for a week, then by doing that you can't meet the attending regularly requirement."
Couillaut said truancy and attendance were two separate things.
"Truancy is the active disengagement and I'm not coming to school, whereas attendance is about there's some reason why I can't come to school."
Earlier this year, the government announced it was committing $88 million to initiatives aimed at getting students to attend school regularly.
Footage for the TV, radio and newspaper campaign which has begun today was filmed at nine schools across New Zealand.