Term 3 student attendance data will be on the Education Minister’s desk today but won’t be made public until 22 December, National’s Education spokesperson Erica Stanford says.

“Delaying the release of this information stops Parliament from scrutinizing the Government for its failure to get kids into the classroom.

“It also stops parents from knowing the true scale of the problem until months after the term has finished.

“Having real-time data on regular attendance is crucial in fighting the attendance crisis, but the ‘most transparent government ever’ is deliberating delaying releasing the data.

“Term 2 attendance data took a disgraceful 133 days to be released publicly and showed that just 40 per cent of students attended school regularly.

“Attendance is one of the most important indicators of student achievement, and we know that kids that do not attend regularly are five times more likely to fall behind in reading, writing and maths.

“This is far too important to be released in a data dump a couple of days before Christmas.

“A National Government would relentlessly focus on getting kids into the classroom so they can learn the basics they need to be successful. It would also instruct the Ministry of Education to publish regular attendance data as soon as possible after the end of each term.

“The Minister should release Term 3 attendance data today.”

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