as truancy numbers increase
The Attendance Service has investigated 16,771 new cases of serious truancy in the first half of this year.
During the same period it resolved 12,726 cases - nearly half of them, because the child in question was found to be already enrolled in another school.
The new cases included 9838 students who were removed from their school's roll and classed as "non-enrolled" after being absent for about 20 days.
The remaining 6933 cases were "unjustified absence", essentially persistent truants.
The number of new non-enrolled cases opened in the first half of 2022 was close to the 10,727 cases opened in all of 2021.
The Attendance Service closed 7877 non-enrolled cases in terms 1 and 2, half of them because the children were found to already be enrolled at another school, while a quarter were helped to re-enrol by the attendance service, and 13 percent turned 16 and could legally leave school.
Link to article: Principals worried about 'families gone missing' as truancy numbers increase | RNZ News
