This annual report - Taranaki District Health Board

TRUANCY AND UNJUSTIFIED ABSENCESIntroductionResearch suggests that sustained truancy significantly affects educational attainment, withstudent attendance being one of the most important predictors of educational achievementin senior secondary school [62] Longitudinal studies in Dunedin and Christchurch alsosuggest that truancy is a strong predictor of substance abuse, suicidal risk, unemployment,early parenting and violence in later life [60] [63].The Ministry of Education intermittently undertakes Surveys of School Attendances. Themost recent School Attendance Survey for which data is available occurred in June 2011[64]. The following section uses data from the Ministry of Education’s School AttendanceSurvey to explore truancy and unjustified absences in New Zealand secondary schoolstudents.Data Source and MethodsDefinitions1. Total Unjustified Absence Rate2. Frequent Truancy RateAbsences were classified using the following definitions:Justified Absences: Absences recorded in the register and marked as having being satisfactorily explained.As the school principal has to make a judgement as to which explanations they will accept, the balance ofjustified and unjustified absences may vary slightly from school to school.Unjustified Absences: Absences which are not explained, or not explained to the satisfaction of the school.For schools with an electronic Attendance Register (eAR), students who attended less than 120 minutes oftheir classes and had at least one unjustified absence were counted as an unjustified absence.Intermittent Unjustified Absences: Where a student is absent for part of a morning (or afternoon) or part of aperiod without justification (e.g. arriving 15 minutes late to school without a reason, or with a reason that is notacceptable to the principal). For schools with eAR data, students who attended classes for more than 120minutes and had two or more unjustified absences were counted as an intermittent unjustified absence.Total Unjustified Absences: The sum of unjustified and intermittent unjustified absences.Frequent Truants: Students were classified as frequent truants if they had three or more unjustified absencesduring the survey week.Absence data was collected for each student for each day of the week. The rate for each absence type wascalculated based on the total school rolls for the participating schools and relates to an average (mean) dailyabsence for the week per 100 students. It should be noted that this does not tell us whether it is the samestudents that are absent, or whether different students are involved each day.Data SourceMinistry of Education Student Attendance Surveys (2006, 2009 and 2011)1. Total Unjustified Absence RateNumerator: Number of unjustified absences and intermittent unjustified absences per weekDenominator: Total number of enrolled students in participating schoolsThe rate was calculated by dividing the number of absences, by the total rolls of participating schools and isexpressed as an average (mean) daily absence for the week per 100 students.2. Frequent Truancy RateNumerator: Number of students with three or more unjustified absences during the survey weekDenominator: Total number of enrolled students in participating schoolsNotes on InterpretationThe 2011 Ministry of Education Attendance Survey gathered data on student attendance during the week of13–17 June 2011. Of the 2470 schools invited to participate, completed returns were received from 2180, aresponse rate of 88%. The responding schools had approximately 625,000 students on their rolls, equating to87% of the student population in all state and state integrated schools on 1 July 2011. In the 2009 Survey, toreduce compliance costs, a representative sample of 768 schools was invited to participate, with the responserate being 85%. All state and state integrated schools were invited to participate in the 2006 survey. Two formsof data collection were used. Schools that use a module in their Student Management Systems to enter theirattendance records electronically were asked to provide an extract from the electronic Attendance Register(eAR). Schools that do not use eAR were invited to take part in the paper version of the survey.Truancy and Unjustified Absences - 146