Source: Radio New Zealand
The government’s goal has been to get 80 percent of children attending school more than 90 percent of the time by 2030. Unsplash/ Taylor Flowe
As the government uses the threat of prosecution to tackle school truancy, one principal says it should be the “very, very last resort”.
The government announced it was taking a parent to court over their child’s chronic absence from school as part of the crackdown led by Associate Education Minister David Seymour.
Seymour was unable to comment on the particulars of the case as it was “ongoing” but said the threat of prosecution had been effective at getting students re-enrolled.
Kaiapoi High School acting principal Scott Liddell told Checkpoint many other steps should be taken before prosecution becomes an option.
“I think it’s something that could probably be placed on the table, but that would be after a long list of strategies have been gone through to address the issue.”
He said they had seen one case in roughly 15 years that required court action.
“In that case, we had been through that long list of things in the toolbox to address the attendance issue, but without success with any of them, pretty much.”
Liddell said the first steps for them should a student stop attending school is to find the root cause.
“You’ve got to look at the why. Why is it happening? And then work with people. What are the barriers? What are the solutions? What can we do around it?”
He used examples such as the current fuel crisis or issues at home that can result in truancy but said each case was different.
“If it’s a chronic student, chronic attendance, we then start looking, is it actually a care and protection concern if a student is not being asked to go to school? There’s no expectation to go to school.
“That becomes a problem that we probably can’t deal with ourselves. We need to work with other agencies.”
Seymour had previously cited that out of 34 cases referred to the prosecution unit, 17 had been resolved.
Liddell said that while such a threat can have an impact on some people, others may not feel as much pressure.
He said each truancy case could be different with some being resolved by students taking up apprenticeships for example and leaving school all together.
The government’s goal has been to get 80 percent of children attending school more than 90 percent of the time by 2030.
The current case in court has been classified as chronic absenteeism, defined by the government as attending less than 70 percent of the school year.
Liddell said they had a very small number of students that would fall into that category each with a unique case.
“It’ll be students that come and will be coming from another school, and you can see through the enrol system, they’ve been to numerous schools.
They might be transient families, they might be families that chop and change.”
Liddell said for truancy case he had seen not many had been chronic absenteeism especially compared with absence for holidays during term times when airlines have cheaper flights.
He said working with students was important to help them understand the importance of consistent attendance.
“Every school in New Zealand is preparing students for the future, the real world, and coming to school and producing an attendance record. That’s what employers are looking for as well, when they ring up.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand