This week the Government is going to announce that it’s getting tough on kids not turning up to school.

And for all the talk about truancy being a “complex issue” —which, to be fair, it is— the Government is going to try and tackle it with a bit of the good old fashioned enforcement.

Which will mean the return of state truancy officers. We haven’t had government or state truancy officers for more than 10 years in New Zealand. Schools themselves have truancy officers but this is, generally, someone who has keeping tabs on school attendance as part of their main job.

But come whenever, the Government is going to hire its own truancy officers. Or “attendance officers” as they will be known.

But whatever they call themselves, it'll be their job to suss out the kids not turning up at school on a regular basis and do what it takes to get these kids back in class.

In some respects, the term “truancy” is a bit one-size-fits-all because you can be truant if you’re just wagging school and hanging out with your mates, and you can be truant if you’re in a family that’s really struggling financially and —if you’re old enough— you might be out of school working a job to bring money into the household.

This became a real issue during COVID —especially in areas like South Auckland— where the adults who normally earned the money found themselves out of a job and so, once the lockdowns ended, some kids just didn’t go back to school because they needed to work to support the family.

Which isn’t all that different from years back when some kids had to leave school to get a job so they could make a contribution. I’ve heard a lot of stories where that happened.

But back to 2023, and the Government has decided it’s going to try to do something about truancy and is bringing back the truancy officers.

But, unlike the old days when kids might have wagged school for a day or so to go fishing or might have given up school altogether because of their family’s financial situation, truancy in 2023 can be put down to all sorts of reasons.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said on Newstalk ZB this morning that 40 percent of New Zealand parents think it's acceptable for children to be out of school for one week per term.

Or, as he put it, away from school for a total of 52 weeks during the whole time they’re at school.

Some of them will be the parents that really brass-off teachers and principals and take their kids away on overseas holidays during term time. Schools love those parents, don’t they?

But also among those parents who think kids being away from school is fine, will be the ones who don’t actually rate school and education all that highly.

They might have had a pretty bad school experience themselves, or they’ve become lost in drug and alcohol addictions and don’t really care what their kids get up to. Or they’re involved in gangs and think the kids are far more useful out committing crimes than going to class.

And it’s these parents that get all the attention, don’t they? Attention in terms of the public going nuts about kids not turning up at school.

Although, the outcome is the same, isn’t it? Whether you’re off on a six-week holiday overseas or off breaking into cars and houses - the outcome is the same. You’re not at school.

But it’ll be the so-called “hopeless ones” who probably end up getting all the attention and support from the new truancy officers once the Government has them up and running. Which I’ve got no problem with.

Our kids are all out of school now but I can remember, when they were in high school especially, getting text messages from the office pretty quickly if they were away from class. Generally, this happened if we’d forgotten to call or email saying they weren’t going to be in.

And I really had the impression that school was on top of the whole absentee thing.

But, of course, there would have been and will still be parents who don’t bother even replying to the text messages about their kids not being at school, and these are the ones that the Government or the Ministry of Education will have in its sights.

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