The Government has pledged $140 million to improve school attendance as part of this year’s budget.
Associate Education Minister David Seymour announced the package this morning and said it aimed to improve attendance over the next four years.
Seymour said around $123 million would go towards delivering a new attendance service. The remaining $17 million would be used to “support and strengthen” frontline attendance services.
The new service would begin at the end of this year and will become fully operational in early 2026. The level of service would depend on the needs of the school.
“It will range from advice and support to schools to intensive case management of students,” Seymour said.
Under the new model, Seymour promised: “Frontline attendance services will be more accountable, better at effectively managing cases, and data-driven in their responses.”
“To achieve this, they will soon have access to a new case management system and better data monitoring, and their contracts will be more closely monitored.”
Seymour said the new attendance service was based on a 2024 Education Review Office report, which found more than 80,000 students were “chronically absent”.
It said the system designed to get students back in school was ineffective and called for reform.
“For example, the current system fails to consistently improve student attendance because funding varies between providers. Many services are under-resourced and cannot meet demand,” Seymour said.
Seymour said the new model would address recommendations made by the report, which included having effective targeted supports in place to address chronic absence, an increased focus on retaining students on their return, a new service model, and strengthening how students are prevented from becoming chronically absent.
“The new attendance services model addresses the first three recommendations. The wider attendance action plan, which includes the requirement for schools to have their own attendance management plan, aligned with the Stepped Attendance Response (STAR) in place by Term 1 of 2026, will address all four,” Seymour said.
Service providers would work with families, local communities, and social agencies to deliver the services. The Ministry of Education would work with providers to make the transition “smooth”.
Schools with the highest number of chronically absent students would be able to apply for funding for an in-school service.
“The schools in this bracket tend to be ones in higher Equity Index (EQI) groups, facing the most socio-economic barriers.”
