Associate Minister for Education, Hon David Seymour has announced a new scheme to address school attendance called his 'stepped attendance response'. The scheme has a punitive end-point to prosecute parents of persistently absent children.

"Punitive approaches in education are well known to fail," said Leanne Otene, President of the New Zealand Principals' Federation (NZPF), "and we would never condone such an approach."

"All principals want every child at school every day," said Otene, "but let's be reasonable, children do get sick, have accidents, go to hospital, and have deaths and other traumatic events in their families," she said. "Our 90% bar for regular attendance means that you can't get sick and have a tangi or you will quickly become an irregular attender," she said.

"Where we need to focus resources is not on kids who have an accident or get sick occasionally, it is on those who have persistently unjustified absences," she said.

"These are the children living transient lives in poverty, without adequate housing or support, with mental health issues and whose parents have unstable employment, addictions, and are otherwise disengaged from society," she said.

"These are our vulnerable families and that is where the Minister's attention and resources should be directed," she said.

"Schools will lift attendance further, as we have been, with local solutions for low level absenteeism. Just give the schools the funding and they will choose what is best for their context. There are already dozens of examples of attendance success when schools are empowered with resource to get on with what suits their community best," she said.

"What schools can't fix are the social and economic circumstances that lead to transient behaviours and long unjustified absences," said Otene. "That's where Associate Minister Seymour needs to focus his efforts and we will deal with the rest," she said.

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