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       Government begins weekly reporting of school attendance figures
        
 (HTM) Source
        
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       Associate Education Minister David Seymour.  Photo: RNZ / John
       Gerritsen
        
       The government has started weekly reporting of school attendance
       figures.
        
       Associate Education Minister David Seymour said a new interactive
       website will updated every week to show how many children were at
       school on a given day.
        
       The figures showed daily attendance peaked at just over 88 percent
       several times this year and slumped to a low of 74 percent on the
       final day of the first term.
        
       Last week national attendance ranged from nearly 89 percent on Tuesday
       to just shy of 82 percent on Friday.
        
       "If we look across the regions, that pattern of about one in 10
       students slumping out of attendance on Friday becomes clear straight
       away," Seymour said.
        
       Considered by region, the figures showed attendance was highest in
       Otago/Southland at 91 percent on two days last week and lowest in Tai
       Tokerau at just over 76 percent on Friday last week.
        
       Seymour said a daily attendance rate of 94 percent was the benchmark
       required to ensure 80 percent of children were at school more than 90
       percent of the time - a target the government hoped to achieve by
       2030.
        
       He said reaching the target would require "major behavioural changes".
        
       Seymour estimated last week's daily attendance averaged about 86
       percent which would translate to a regular attendance rate of about 60
       percent if sustained for an entire school term.
        
       In term four last year, 54 percent of students were regular attenders.
        
       Seymour said the government currently had no intention of publishing
       individual school data because it might discourage some from providing
       their figures.
        
       He said publishing the data cost about $1 million a year and the only
       work required of schools was to push a button to send their figures to
       the ministry every week.
        
       The information would help focus people on the problem and provide
       insights that would help solve it, he said.
        
       "At the moment frankly the government has been flying blind for too
       long."
        
       The Ministry of Education previously published daily attendance
       figures every week for about three-and-a-half years to track
       attendance during the height of the pandemic. It stopped publishing
       those figures in September last year.
        
       Seymour said from term one next year, all schools would be required to
       report attendance figures every day.
        
       "That will require law changes to be made and Cabinet has agreed that
       later this year we will amend the Education and Training Act so that
       the Education Secretary can direct schools to report their data
       daily," he said.
        
       He said nearly 89 percent of schools were voluntarily providing their
       figures and only six schools did not have a computer system that
       allowed them to easily share their data.
        
        
        
        
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