30000 kids a day cut class       

The Ministry of Education's 2009 truancy survey, released on Tuesday, showed that more than 30000 students a day fail to turn up to classes.

Education Minister Anne Tolley says an additional $4 million a year will be provided, enabling more schools to use electronic attendance registers which will allow them to quickly identify casual truants before they begin to skip school regularly. The funding will go to towards more schools to implement the Early Notification System, which automatically sends a text message to parents whose children are missing from school without explanation, a statement from the minister says.

There will be one-off funding of $1.5 million to reduce the time it takes to get non-enrolled students back into school. A small amount has also been set aside to help schools prosecute parents of children who are persistently truant.

By NATHAN BEAUMONT - The Dominion Post Last updated 05:00 02/03/2010

The Government has vowed to crack down on truancy as a nationwide survey shows more than 30,000 children a day cut class. The survey, which will be made public today, also reveals a "lost tribe" of about 2500 long-term truants who are not enrolled in school. Education Minister Anne Tolley said the survey results were "absolutely outrageous". More manpower would be used to find the "lost tribe" including searching known hangouts such as shopping malls and visiting homes.

The Government is offering financial help to schools wanting to prosecute the "worst" parents that have not enrolled their children at primary and secondary schools. Prosecution guidelines will be published this year, outlining how schools can apply for funding to help them to take a prosecution against parents.

Schools will get up to $1000 to pay for travel costs, for a school's attendance officer to prepare court documents and lawyer's fees."We cannot sit back and do nothing. These figures are really shocking and we need to get serious about tackling this problem," Mrs Tolley said. "If these kids are not at school then they are not learning and that is unacceptable. Now we know what sort of numbers we are dealing with I expect the number of truant children to start decreasing as we roll out initiatives."

The Government has doubled truancy funding to $32 million, which will be spent during the next four years. Schools will be told to introduce an automated computer system which sends text messages or email alerts to parents asking them to explain why their child is not at school. Parents can reply to the messages to confirm if their children are legitimately away from class, or if they are just skiving off.

The scheme has made huge inroads at Wainuiomata High School, which introduced the system in 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, which cost 17 cents each. Schools will also be told to use an electronic roll system, replacing the old paper-based system.

The week-long Education Ministry survey in June, using a computerised enrolment tracking system, involved 653 of the 2700 primary and secondary schools. It showed about 30,000 children, about 4 per cent of the 750,000 pupils, were truant for part or all of a school day.

Previous data was about four years old and education officials admitted they could only guess how many children were absent on any given day. A biennial week-long survey of schools to collect crucial truancy figures, to have been held in 2008, was ditched while a electronic attendance- tracking system was implemented in some schools.

Original Article from www.stuff.co.nz and www.nzaahd.org.nz