Associate Education Minister David Seymour says the government has signed 83 new contracts with truancy services. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says the government has finished signing 83 new contracts with truancy services.
Previous contracts were halted while the government renegotiated with attendance service providers, and $140 million in funding over four years was allocated for the revamped approach in this year's Budget.
Students not enrolled or who are "chronically absent" - equivalent to 15 or more days per school term - can be referred to attendance services, usually once the school has exhausted its own efforts.
Seymour confirmed the services would also all use a new standardised case management software which provides monitoring at a per-student level.
"I was impressed by the systems some services had developed by themselves, so we want to spread that excellence across the entire country," he said.
Up to 3 percent of providers' contract funding will also be able to be used to address students' unmet basic needs like school uniforms, stationery and transport.
"In 2024 Ministry and ERO reviews found that the attendance services system wasn't working. Funding was scattershot, distributed inefficiently, and failing to get results. We've re-organised the provision of attendance services, awarding new contracts and increasing support for services providing excellent results.
"School attendance has steadily improved over the last year, but there are still too many students absent. These new contracts fix what matters for kids and families."
Seymour told First Up the new contracts had much tougher performance criteria and there would be better results for the money spent.
"There were some attendance services that were doing a fantastic job ... but equally there was some real mediocrity and hopeless practice," he said.
A number of "potential prosecutions" over truancy had been intiated, he said, but there had been no prosecutions as yet.
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