War on the waggers: How David Seymour plans to see truancy stats turned around
Parents could face prosecution if their children are unjustifiably out of school.
Mōrena, and welcome to The Bulletin for Friday, September 27.
In today’s edition: Foreign minister to address UN General Assembly, The Warehouse has slumped to its first loss, and Whakaata Māori proposes job cuts. But first, the government takes aim at parents as it aims to turnaround our “truancy crisis”.
The ‘star’ scheme
David Seymour is on a warpath against truancy. The associate education minister warned parents could face prosecution if their children are unjustifiably out of school as part of a new education policy unveiled by the government yesterday. As reported by the Herald, the new “star” scheme – meaning Stepped Attendance Response – will place obligations on parents and schools to ensure children attend classes regularly. “Any student who reaches a clearly defined threshold of days absent will trigger an appropriate and proportionate response from their school and the ministry,” said Seymour.
Meanwhile, Seymour said that schools had “their part to play” in setting a good example for students and urged them not to hold teacher only days during term time. And Seymour also took aim at children intending to participate in a school climate protest today saying it should be held in the holidays, which would somewhat dampen the whole “strike” angle.
New truancy stats released
All of this took place against the backdrop of the latest round of truancy figures which showed a slight increase in the number of students regularly attending class when compared with one year ago – though the numbers remain stubbornly low. In term two this year, 53.2% of students were in class regularly compared with 47.1% over the same period in 2023.
Truancy data is a lot more complex than it sounds, as Rachel Judkins explained earlier in the year for The Spinoff. In order for a child to be deemed as a regular attendee, they must be present 90% or more of the time. If a student missed more than one day per fortnight, or more than one week per term, they would not considered to be attending regularly. “When you look at the regularly attending stats, it covers people in hospital, it covers funerals, it covers everything,” Vaughan Couillault, president of the Secondary Principals’ Association of New Zealand, told Judkins.
Daily attendance figures are higher (in the mid-70s to 80s), though Seymour said that for schools to reach the target of 80% regular attendance by 2030 the daily attendance number would need to be 94%.
A chilly reception
Some of Seymour’s previous criticism has been directed at parents intentionally taking their children out of school during term time for “cheap flights”, reported the Herald’s Derek Cheng. But the latest figures, reported 1News, show the main reason for non-attendance in term two this year was short-term illness or medical absences. While the threat of punishment could work in the former case, there is concern that a blanket approach won’t get to the core reason some kids don’t make it to class, as detailed by RNZ’s Felix Walton. Principals Federation head Leanne Otene said it shouldn’t be up to schools to dish out punitive measures, while Post Primary Teachers' Association president Chris Abercrombie said the ministry could already prosecute parents, but it was hardly used.
"It doesn't happen very often because students who have got chronic absenteeism... There's lots of other issues going on in that family and fining them isn't necessarily going to help the situation at all,” he said. One principal, Pat Newman, told Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan it was a political decision that sounded good, but wouldn’t work in practice.
There has also been push back against the call for teacher-only days to be held in the holidays, reported The Post’s Hanna McCallum. “I quite like giving schools the right to make those decisions – what's best for them,” said one mum. “They don’t do it for fun”. It’s hard to find a single voice in the media endorsing the government’s moves, though Seymour has no apologies. “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.”
Te reo course funding redirected
If last week was all about crime, this week is shaping up to be the government’s education week. While David Seymour was rolling out his own policy yesterday, the education minister Erica Stanford also confirmed that $30m of funding for a course to help teachers learn te reo Māori would be redirected into the government’s revamped and fast-tracked maths curriculum, reported the Herald’s Rachel Maher. Speaking to Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking, Stanford argued that that maths achievement was a higher priority.
But the move blindsided some, New Zealand Education Institution president Mark Potter told RNZ’s Checkpoint. Potter believed the decision was shortsighted. "It gave a different world view through the Māori lens as well as increasing their confidence, their skill levels and by doing so, the same thing for the children they are teaching, it has been enriching for everybody," he said.
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Foreign minister to address UN General Assembly
Winston Peters wasn’t happy when people were talking over him during a UN Security Council speech yesterday, telling them to be quiet. But today, he should have a more engrossed audience. The foreign minister, who is in New York, will address the United Nations General Assembly at about midday New Zealand time. As Newsroom’s Sam Sachdeva writes, it’s likely Peters will issue a stern message to the Security Council in the light of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. At his last UN speech in April, Peters said the Security Council had “failed in its responsibility to maintain international peace and security”.
It comes after New Zealand supported a UN resolution that, Peters said, signalled New Zealand’s “strong support for international law and the need for a two-state solution”.
It would be a rare moment of unity between Peters and former prime minister Helen Clark, who told the Security Council last week that a new approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict was needed, reported RNZ’s Jo Moir.
Listen: Gazing into the infrastructure crystal ball
Aotearoa’s biggest problems are largely caused by a lack of infrastructure - housing, transport, water, hospital and education - in the areas that need it most. So how could (or should) we plan the systems that keep our country running? And who is responsible for divining the future to make decisions that can have an impact for decades to come? Bernard Hickey is joined by Peter Nunns, acting general manager of Te Waihanga NZ Infrastructure Commission, to discuss the murky business of planning infrastructure projects for an uncertain future.
Find the latest episode of When the Facts Change below or wherever you get your podcasts.
Mataaho Collective on taking up space and bringing their mahi to the world
“We don’t have dealers or producers or managers – it’s just us four. Having gone through 12 years of working together, we’ve learned so much.”
After a year at Te Papa, Mataaho Collective’s large-scale installation Takapau went to the Venice Biennale – and promptly scooped the global prize. The wāhine Māori artists tell us how it felt to win the Golden Lion, and what continues to unite them as a collective, in the latest edition of Art Work. Read it here.
Click and Collect
We talked a few weeks back about the ongoing delays in the Ministry of Health’s review of puberty blockers. Today, reports the Herald, new figures show New Zealand is prescribing up to seven times more puberty blockers to young transgender patients than other similar countries (though prescribing rates have dropped in the last two years).
The Warehouse has slumped to its first loss ($54.2m) in the history of the company, reports Kate McVicar for the NBR (paywalled). Earlier in the year, we looked at the troubled times for the iconic red shed.
Just two of the country’s 25 polytechs are deemed “viable”, as the government pushes ahead with its plan to undo Te Pūkenga.
The new Dunedin Hospital is at risk of blowing out to $3 billion, prompting the government to look at alternative options (BusinessDesk, paywalled).
Whakaata Māori proposes job cuts, possible axing of TV news.
Complaint laid over Wellington councillor’s alleged airport share conflict.
Hundreds of Canterbury meatworkers are anxiously waiting to find out if their jobs are safe.
A council vehicle used by the former Environment Canterbury chairman was recorded speeding 46 times in one day, and once hit 105kph in a 50kph zone.
Preyanka Gothanayagi searches for Wellington’s best pie. Lyric Waiwiri-Smith reflects on writing a story that became a hit, and then a punchline. The Wahs have a bar now and Duncan Greive was there on opening night. Sharing the spammy and scammy “goodbye to Meta AI” message on Instagram shows celebs are as hopeful and hopeless as the rest of us, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell. Alex Casey asked some of the biggest fans of the recently cancelled Time Bandits why it should come back for season two. In an extract from his new autobiography, Patrick Gower recalls the time John Key and Mike Hosking left the mics on. Hayden Donnell asks: Could you be the guy standing behind the PM looking furious?
That’s it for another week, thanks for reading. See you back here after the weekend.
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🙋🏽♀️There is no need to choose between funding Maori language training or maths training for teachers 🤬- a fairly constructed tax system & a sensible govt debt approach would mean we could have BOTH, not to mention funding critical infrastructure like the Dunedin hospital & others, a rail-enabled Inter Island ferry (surely the design could still be used & the contract re-instated thereby minimising the loss via cancellation fees? & get multi-party sign-off ...) All of these costly & stupid decisions are like a suicide pact 🤷🏾♀️
As for See-less & his truancy tirade - the nuanced data shows he either doesn't read it, or chooses to misrepresent it. It would seem schools would be better off BRUSHING UP ON THEIR TE REO instead of harassing parents & students ... just sayin'
🌻Also: Please go to the Parliament website & sign the petition AGAINST re-instating offshore oil & gas mining - if you DO oppose it of course! 😜 For some reason (!) there were only 5 days allowed, and now only 4 days left for submissions including the weekend - a suggested quick submission from Mountain Tui = "I ask that this bill NOT be passed. If it IS passed, I ask that the next government repeal it immediately and revoke all permits issued with NO compensation to permit holders." In the comments segment I mentioned moving away from fossil fuels to renewables, & prioritising climate change mitigation instead. Apparently submissions can be used by future govts, even if this one is bound & determined to do whatever their minority members want, regardless of any science, economics, or public opinion 🤷🏾♀️
It’s always disturbing when a decidedly non-parent makes policies for truancy and other things that only parents can truly understand. Even Nicola Willis would do a better job, maybe it’s time for them to swap places, as I feel David Seymour’s maths is a whole lot better and he might actually develop financially sound polices that add up. Rather than picking on the lower socio economic group all the time. As this article says, there’s usually a bigger reason why kids don’t attend school. In my brother’s case it was because he had Mensa level intelligence and he was bored at school. I can only hope my son doesn’t experience this as he starts school next year, he is also showing signs of high intelligence and aptitude for learning. I tell him something once and he knows it, he’s ahead of all the other children in his daycare in maths and language, he spelt his first word aged 2. In some families it’s because the family are spending 70% of their minimum wage income lining their landlord’s pockets and so they need to reluctantly send their children out to work to supplement the family income. In some families it’s because they’re always sick, or afraid of getting sick, if the children or parents have immune issues they need to be kept from school in waves of illness.
The policy is deliberately vague, and we don’t really know how it’s going to work for illness. It seems like there’s not a lot of room for staying off school for a week say, with a serious illness like influenza or Covid. Or taking 3 days off for bereavement, longer maybe if it was a close relative like a grandparent, parent or sibling.