Editor
Every five-year-old wants to go to school. They can’t wait to get there and paint pictures, make things, read books and count things. They acquire a new teacher and inherit a whole group of new friends. They play, have fun, squeal loudly, and run. School is bliss. They may not realise when they are five, but school is also where they will gain the knowledge and learn the skills to be successful in life. These skills include literacy and numeracy; building a knowledge base about living and working in their world; thinking for themselves; communicating with others; getting on with others; and collaborating and sharing with others. It is their human right to be educated at school – a highly valued right which many have fought hard to achieve. If you accept the argument that what you learn at school sets you up for life, then you might also argue that to be successful in life, you must attend school. Afterall you can’t learn what schools teach if you are not there. There is a high correlation between attendance and achievement at school. According to current reports at least 30 per cent of young people across the country are missing from school right now. Why? It would be easy to blame the pandemic. After all, we are battling the highly contagious Omicron variant right now with tens of thousands of cases every day. That would explain a big number of school absences, but not all of them because school attendance rates have been sliding since 2013, well before the pandemic arrived. In fact, between 2015 and 2019 the percentage of students regularly attending school fell 11.8 percentage points. Some will say the reasons for school non-attendance are just too complex to either tease out or generalize from. That too may be true, but the real question is whether we are prepared to tackle the problem. The Government certainly is and has had parliament’s education and workforce committee investigating school nonattendance since last year. In April, the committee released their findings. The findings were the result of examining submissions from several sources including the Ministry of Education, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, the New Zealand College of Clinical Psychologists, principals, students, families, and carefully analysing the effects of the pandemic. They are compelling and have prompted the Minister of Education to inject $88 million into fixing the problem. The findings fall broadly into four categories. They relate to the complexity of family circumstances outside of school, students themselves, schools, including the ability of neurodiverse and students with disabilities to enrol in schools and the pandemic. The investigation confirmed that the complexity of family circumstances was a factor and could be described variously as
socio-economic circumstances, health and mental health issues, housing and family transience. These are loosely described as economic and social issues over which a school has no control yet can impact seriously on student school attendance. Solutions cannot be found within the school or even within the Ministry of Education. They cannot easily be resolved by Government either without a keen focus on social and housing inequities, poverty, family violence and mental health. These are tough problems. The gap between the wealthy and the poor is now a massive gulch and the group struggling with the effects of poverty is growing. Many see no way out. Mental health issues thrive when life is reduced to how we survive till tomorrow. School attendance is unlikely to be a top priority for these families and even if it was, they would struggle to pay for school uniforms, books, stationery and transporting their children to school. That said there is also an element of parentally sanctioned absenteeism where parents deliberately keep children at home or take them on extended holidays during school term time. School inclusiveness is another issue. Whilst it is highly unlikely that any principal would refuse an enrolment just because a student is neurodiverse or has a disability, schools do need appropriate resources, specialist help, and learning supports to provide the education such students need. For decades school principals have been advocating for increased support so they can cater for all students. Most agree that the level of support they currently have is woefully inadequate. Further, schools have been critical of the Ministry attendance service which many find ineffective. Most agree that a localized service would be preferable provided it is adequately funded. What schools can take responsibility for though is the school culture, the kind of education they are providing and the way they deliver the curriculum. Feedback from students suggests that in some cases schools could do better. They have suggested schools can become toxic places when bullying is not checked which affects students mentally and emotionally and can lead to dropping out of school. They say schools should take a holistic view and recognize the different circumstances students are in, rather than ignoring the social and emotional factors that affect them every day. Students also referred to the importance of building strong and healthy relationships with teachers which brings greater understanding and more likelihood of student engagement and school attendance. The five-year-olds probably can’t fix all the social, financial and health inequity issues but I suggest a small portion of the $88 million be allocated to asking them what they think would keep school the most exciting fun-filled place for everyone to go to every day. They might just surprise us.