School attendance targets 'unrealistic'

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from Northern Outlook

By David Hill, local democracy reporter

A North Canterbury principal says school attendance targets are unrealistic in the present environment.

With a general election looming, politicians have been promising to fix declining school attendance rates.

But Rangiora High School principal Bruce Kearney said the biggest barriers to school attendance targets were the Ministry of Education’s "inability" to negotiate a pay settlement with teachers and the mandatory seven-day Covid-19 stand down.

The Ministry of Education’s target is for all students to achieve 90% regular attendance at school.

That equated to just one day absent a fortnight, or six or seven days in a school term.

"Yes, non-attendance is a problem, but it is not because students aren’t attending school, it is because we are coming out of
Covid where hardly anybody in any industry is hitting 90% attendance," he said.

"It is a little rich for the Minister of Education to write letters to school principals asking them to get on board with attendance when the biggest factor impacting attendance at the moment is the Government’s inability to sign a contract with teachers."

While there was a lot of talk about non-attendance, Kearney said there was a lack of funding to enable schools to tackle the issue.

Rangiora High School recently employed an attendance officer from school funds to reach out to students in the 70-80% attendance category.

Rangiora New Life School principal Stephen Walters said the Ministry of Education should be putting more emphasis on student achievement rather than looking at attendance on its own.

"We looked at our data and attendance in term one was higher than last year, but it is still behind 2019.

"But the interesting thing is even though attendance is lagging, academic performance has been sustained and even improved slightly in some areas."

He said the Covid experience had led to a change in attituded towards wellbeing.

"I think Covid has taught us, if you are unwell stay home until you are well."

Walters said his school moved to "a hybrid learning style" 10 years ago, embracing online learning alongside learning in the classroom.

It allowed students to continue learning and engage with teachers when absent from school.

The results indicated it was working, he said.

Oxford Area School principal Mike Hart said attendance improved significantly in term one this year at 61.9%, compared to 43.7% for term one last year.

"Pre Covid-19 attendance in term one 2019 was 71.7% regular attendance, so we still have improvements to make, but the data so far is trending in the right direction."

Comment has been sought from the Ministry of Education and Education Minister Jan Tinetti's office.