this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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Seymour pointed to New Zealand's attendance rates having fallen from 69.5 percent in term 2015, to 39.9 percent in term two 2022.

That's actually quite a shocking statistic, there must be a large number of kids simply never attending school at all to have an average that low.

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[–] Xcf456 7 points 7 months ago (4 children)

It doesnt have to be large amounts of complete non attendance. Regular attendance is defined as attending for more than 90 per cent of the term. Terms are about 10 weeks so 50 days, to be counted in the non attendance figures you have to miss five days in a term. A couple of illnesses can easily knock kids under that, not that there aren't more long term absences for other reasons as well.

On illness, term 2 2022 is the middle of our biggest covid outbreak when omicron got in and all the rules were being relaxed. Attendance has gone up again since then but is still lower than pre covid. Seems cynical that Seymour would pick this period as the end point when these stats were being collected until term 3 last year.

[–] Ilovethebomb 7 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Right, so it's not 40% attendance, it's 40% failed to meet 90% attendance.

Very confusing.

[–] Xcf456 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah exactly. I think it gets interpreted, and unfortunately misrepresented by some, as a rate of long-term truancy when it's actually that, plus a whole bunch of other things, many of which are perfectly reasonable.

[–] Ilovethebomb 2 points 7 months ago

It's definitely a very poor way to present the data.

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