OPINION
Tani Newton
No wonder it’s taking them so long to form a government. The list of problems they can’t fix, and that the public will get angry with them for not fixing, grows at about the same rate as the national debt. You could almost feel sorry for them.
On the list of problems the new government won’t be able to fix – high or low on the list, it doesn’t really matter – is truancy in the state schools. According to the latest statistics, only 47% of children enrolled in registered schools are now regularly attending. That figure is staggering, considering that a few years ago, 90% of students could generally be expected to be in attendance on any given day, with around 10% reporting illness or otherwise justified absence.
I should come out here and admit that I am flatly anti-school. I didn’t go to school, my children have never been to school, and my grandchildren are not going to school. I’m an outsider looking in. As such, I’ve always suspected the sincerity of the school system’s insistence that what they had to offer was of vital importance, and that missing a day or even an hour of school represented a loss that could never be made up.
But even to me, what happened in 2020 was starkly revelatory. That was the year the governments of the world decided they wanted us all to stay indoors, hide, and not peep out the windows while they got on with setting up facial recognition cameras and 5G towers. And just like that, they closed all the schools and sent all the children home to do basically nothing.
School wasn’t just non-essential: it didn’t matter at all.
Officially, ‘homeschooling’ has boomed in the last few years, from 6,573 children in 2019 to almost 11,000 (1.3% of school-age children) now. Not surprisingly. I was hoping for more than that. But I think what has happened is that a large proportion of the population has simply lost interest. “On time, every day, truancy is not OK” somehow doesn’t have the same impressive ring to it that it used to have. People are not going to be re-persuaded. The cacophony of mixed messages has left them with, if I may coin a phrase, propaganda overload.
I’ve certainly noticed the result. New Zealand centres used to be ghost towns for much of the day, with hardly a child in sight. Now there are children everywhere, and adults look around strangely and ask each other if it’s school holidays. We’re witnessing an epidemic of truancy: a pandemic, I should say since it is affecting not only our fair country.
Naturally, the schools have noticed it the most. In a spectacular display of desperation, some teachers have taken to organising regular fun days, with balloons, special guests and entertainment. Following right along in the grand tradition of vaccination carnivals and census parties… Of course, this is just classic poor leadership: give up on threats, resort to bribes.
And the children? It probably makes the smallest difference to them. Instead of sitting in school getting no education, they’re walking around outside getting no education. Maybe they’ll get some fresh air. If you look at what is coming down the pipeline in the way of curriculum, I’d say they got out not a moment too soon.