Ministry issues tender for truancy system

The Education Ministry is on the hunt for suppliers of computer systems to help it fight truancy.

The systems, which schools will be encouraged to introduce, will send text messages and emails or voice call parents asking them to explain their child's absence.

Thirty-thousand children a day skip classes and 2500 long-term truants are not enrolled at school, The Dominion Post revealed this month.

The ministry has vowed to tackle the problem and has doubled truancy funding to $32 million, which will be spent in the next four years. It will select up to three preferred suppliers of the systems and contribute up to $1.4 million towards their setup and operation in the first year.

Ministry group manager for schools and student support Jeremy Wood says schools will have to make up any shortfall but it is unclear what that may be. It is too early to say whether the ministry will subsidise the systems beyond the first year, he says.

About 560 state and state-integrated secondary and intermediate schools will be eligible to use the subsidised systems, including the 200 schools with truancy software already in place.

Schools already using the systems are not subsidised and may need to move to one of the approved systems to get the subsidy.

Schools must have student management systems to use the truancy notification systems, and record attendance electronically, rather than on paper.

Secondary Principals Council chair Julia Davidson says it is watching the initiative with interest.

Schools have opted for different student management systems, which could be a challenge when it comes to implementing the notification software, she says.

Mr Wood says 95 per cent of schools have systems that will support truancy notification software.

Wainuiomata High School has been using a truancy notification system since May. Before it was introduced, there were about 90 unexplained absences each day at the 950-pupil high school. A month later it was sending about 50 text messages a day.

Suppliers will be contracted to provide the systems from May until December but can extend the contract for another three years, if they can prove their system is reducing truancy rates.

When calling parents, the systems will use a voice synthesiser to read a message once the call is answered.

- © Fairfax NZ News