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Saturday, July 25, 2026

David Farrar: What a change in attendance


This is the latest data. Regular attendance dropped 16 percentage points or 25% from 2017 to 2023. A disaster. Since 2023 it has increased 17 percentage points or 37%. In real terms there are 157,000 more students now regularly attending school.


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For Māori students regular attendance dropped 17 percentage points or 34% from 2017 to 2023. What do you think that will do to equity!. Since 2023 it has increased 16 percentage points or 47%. In real terms there are 15,000 more Māori students now regularly attending school.


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This is the proportion of students absent for more than 12 weeks a year – so all but dropped out. It peaked at 14% under Labour, and even worse was at 24% for Māori students. Labour will die in a ditch over co-governance of water, but allowed 1 in 4 Māori students to drop out of school.

There are 39,000 fewer students chronically absent in June 2026 than in June 2023. Again a great achievement.

Of course still a long way to go, but the trend is very very clear.

David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Coalition policy actually working! Whodathunkit.

Anonymous said...

When I began teaching in 1949 each teacher was responsible for a class and was issued a Register of names which was checked morning and afternoon so at any time the presence or whereabouts of a pupil was known. Absences had to be explained and truants soon disciplined. What has happened to that simple yet effective system?

Anonymous said...

Attendance registers went the same way as lots of other good teaching methods. Just throw away the old ways. The new up and coming breed of teachers knew their new ways were MUCH better.

Anonymous said...

I suppose data correct. Though every day in Wellington I see school kids wandering around the city between 9 and 3. I wonder how many minutes of actual studying these kids do per week. Of course they never have any homework. Wonder what parents of Asian students think.

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