The Government is undertaking a significant reform of school attendance services to improve student participation and address chronic absenteeism across New Zealand. Associate Education Minister David Seymour announced sweeping changes to how the Ministry of Education contracts and funds attendance services, aiming to double capacity and deliver better results for students, families, and schools.

“School attendance has steadily improved over the last year, but there are still too many students absent,” Seymour said. “These new contracts fix what matters for kids and families.”

The overhaul follows findings from 2024 reviews by the Ministry of Education and the Education Review Office (ERO) , which concluded that the previous attendance system was inefficient, fragmented, and lacked

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