On a typical school day in Australia, about 11 per cent of students who should be at school are absent.
About 40 per cent of students – more than 1.2 million – miss at least one day of school every two weeks.
These absences add up quickly. Missing one day of school a fortnight is the equivalent of missing four weeks a year – and missing a whole year between the first day of school and the end of Year 10.
This is a big and growing problem: since 2018, attendance has fallen in 96 per cent of Australia’s schools.
School attendance matters. The more a child misses school, the worse their school results are likely to be. And missing out on school can also affect children’s social skills and emotional and mental well-being.
Federal, state, and territory Education Ministers have committed to getting school attendance back to pre-pandemic rates by the end of the decade.
Hitting this ambitious target will require a fundamental rethink of how we prioritise school attendance in Australia. New approaches – by politicians, principals, parents, and the wider community – are needed to encourage attendance and overcome barriers to going to school.
Governments should take five key first steps:
- Launch a public campaign explaining why attending school is so important.
- Overhaul the way school attendance data are collected and reported.
- Identify schools with strong attendance records and spread their methods to other schools.
- Give parents better health advice on when their children should stay home – and when they should go to school.
- Make school attendance an urgent, whole-of-government priority.
A national focus on school attendance – starting with this five-point plan – would help to give every Australian child the chance to learn, every day.