- Hon David Seymour
Associate Education Minister David Seymour welcomes students back to school with a call to raise attendance from last year.
"The Government encourages all students to attend school every day because there is a clear connection between being present at school and setting yourself up for a bright future," says Mr Seymour.
"Our attendance goal for 2025 is to raise each school Term's attendance rates higher than the same periods in 2024. This progress is essential for reaching the Government's target of 80 per cent of students more than 90 per cent of the term by 2030.
In 2024, 61.7 per cent of students attended school regularly in Term 1, 53.2 per cent attended school regularly in Term 2, and 51.3 per cent attended school regularly in Term 3. Term 4 figures will be finalised and available shortly.
"Schools are now required to record and submit student attendance every day for public reporting. The publication process of attendance data from the new dashboard will be faster and allow quicker responses to low attendance.
In coming weeks, the Ministry of Education will publish daily attendance data on a new and improved interactive attendance dashboard. The new dashboard replaces the current attendance dashboard (updated weekly) on the Ministry's Education Counts website.
"With more information about attendance we will improve educational outcomes for New Zealand children. We're making this information publicly available and putting an emphasis on getting to school," says Mr Seymour.
"Previously, schools were required to provide attendance data after the end of each term. The shift to daily reporting applies to all schools except for a small number of kura who will begin daily reporting in mid-2025.
"The shift to weekly reporting last year has already provided greater insights. For example, attendance on Fridays remains a particular problem, being frequently 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.
"This richer set of data will help us understand patterns in attendance and why some students aren't attending. It will also ensure we can understand the effectiveness of interventions.
"This will not create extra work for schools as daily recording of student attendance is already a requirement when a school is open for instruction, the Government is now compiling the data and making it readily available. To support schools to provide more accurate data we have also reviewed and reduced the number of attendance codes that schools need to use when recording attendance, from 26 to 15.
"We all need to get behind schools so they can keep a strong focus on teaching and help as many students as possible to become regular attenders.
"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."
Note to editors:
Daily Attendance Dashboard: Daily attendance | Education Counts
Attendance data can be found here: Attendance | Education Counts
Refreshed Attendance Codes: Refreshed attendance codes from Term 1 2025
Daily Attendance Reporting: Daily attendance reporting - Ministry of Education
Amendment - School Attendance Rules 2025: Amendment - School Attendance Rules 2025
