On the ‘carrot’ side of the ledger, some American commentators have suggested paying students to turn up to school. But here in New Zealand, the government has opted for the ‘stick’ approach, announcing $74M to pay for new attendance officers. ACT wants to use a bigger stick and issue on-the-spot fines to the parents of truant students.
But some of our innovative secondary schools have devised a clever, ‘third way’, approach to the problem. Their solution is to change the definition of school attendance.
