Associate Education Minister David Seymour Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Associate Education Minister David Seymour is celebrating attendance statistics, despite it having dropped compared to the same period last term.
"It has been a promising start to term three with attendance up from the last two weeks of term two, with an overall attendance rate of 83.9 per cent. The best day was the first Tuesday of the term with 86.2 percent attendance," Seymour said in a media release on Monday.
He called it a "bright start" to term three attendance.
The final two weeks of last term had an attendance rate of 80.8 percent. The overall average attendance rate for term 2 was 82.9 percent.
Seymour said it showed "that when the government takes education seriously, so do New Zealanders".
However, the data shows the 83.9 percent rate for the first two weeks this term was down by nearly 2 percentage points compared to the 85.8 percent in the first two weeks of term 2 - the most comparable period.
Asked about this, Seymour said the final weeks of the term was a better comparison because of the season.
"It is true that the start of term 2 had better attendance than the start of term 3, however the last two weeks of last term are more relevant because they're also mid-winter. For the first time, with daily data, we've been able to observe seasonal patterns," he said.
"Of course in the long term, the government's approach to gathering daily data will allow much richer and useful comparisons so we can understand how to raise attendance."
Seymour's statement said attendance on Fridays was a "particular problem" and was often lower than any other day of the week.
"I encourage parents to think of the long-term impact of letting students skip Fridays, both in missed education and in setting good habits for future employment," he said.
He noted the rates were also still short of the government's target of having 80 percent of students attending for more than 90 percent of the term by 2030.
"To achieve this, I'm saying to schools that they need to aspire to reach an average daily attendance rate above 94 percent," Seymour said.
"If the truancy crisis isn't addressed there will be an 80-year long shadow of people who missed out on education when they were young, are less able to work, less able to participate in society, more likely to be on benefits. That's how serious this is."
The government this year brought in daily attendance reporting, alongside changes to public health guidelines on when students are too sick to attend.
Seymour said high-quality attendance data "is helping students, parents, and school communities identify absence, talk about the importance of school attendance, and measure positive change over time".