Editorial: Big stick half the solution

OPINION: Most of us will have fond memories of our school days. While we might have detested a lot of it at the time, there's nothing like slogging away in the workforce to make you realise just how good you had it.

There were always students who wagged. Some of us may even have considered bunking off a right of passage.

However, the misty eyes of nostalgia are quickly cleared when you look at the latest figures on truancy from the Education Ministry: 30,000 children a day skip class and a "lost tribe" of 2500 long-term truants are not enrolled in school.

The absentee rate in the Waikato was second only to Gisborne. A total of 74,000 students attended primary and secondary school in the region last year, and the absence rate was 13.6 per cent – more than 10,000 students.

To help tackle the problem the Government has doubled truancy funding to $32 million, which will be spent in the next four years. This money will mostly be used to give schools more access to electronic attendance registers that will identify truancy trends developing with particular students and more widespread use of an early notification text system, which is already in place in some Hamilton schools.

Those using it – Peachgrove Intermediate and Melville High School – say it has made a big difference. The Government has also said that it is considering making it easier for schools to prosecute the parents of repeat offenders.

While all of this is welcome, in many ways it's ambulance at the bottom of the cliff stuff. The real issues are why those schoolchildren are not engaged enough to remain in school in the first place and what to do with them once they're back in class. The Education Ministry's statistics on truancy include some telling numbers: truancy rates are 80 per cent higher at decile 1 schools than decile 10 schools; Polynesian pupils are twice as likely to skip classes than non Polynedian students, and about 5 per cent of year 9 pupils cut class, compared with 15 per cent in year 13. Are we letting these children down to start with? Is it as simple as giving them the same quality education as those attending decile 10 schools?Children's Commissioner John Angus points out that truancy rates are directly related to how well schools respond to the different learning needs of students.

"Schools will need to have a flexible approach that takes this into account in order to properly address attendance rates. A punitive approach to students or blaming their parents will not address the root cause of their truancy."

Moreover, none of us wants the good students to suffer because too much time and money are being directed into corralling repeat waggers. However, a wise person once noted that managing "the good" people was just as much about working hard with those lagging behind. Simply spending money on new technology and punitive measures is not enough.

- © Fairfax NZ News