9. ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) Link to this
to the Minister of Education
How many secondary school-age children under 16 are not enrolled in a school?
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Education) Link to this
We will know soon; schools started last week. Primary and intermediate school student records are currently transiting across to secondary schools. These new enrolments are being processed by individual schools, and the Ministry of Education expects they will all be processed by March, when a clearer picture will emerge.
Why in the same week that the Government announced it wants to keep students in school up to the age of 18 is the Ministry of Education telling its regional offices that the hardest cases to keep enrolled in school under the current law can no longer be dealt with by the contractor that is meant to get those non-enrolled students back to school?
It is for exactly the reasons the member has outlined that the Schools Plus programme has been developed. We are losing too many students, not just at the 16 and 17-year-old age range but younger. We need to revolutionise the secondary school system to deal with exactly the problem the member has outlined.
Dr Ashraf Choudhary Link to this
What action has the Labour-led Government taken to identify and place back into education the students who are not enrolled at school?
One student not enrolled in school is one too many. The Labour-led Government has been very active in addressing truancy. Measures have included a complete review of truancy services, which led to enhanced funding in Budget 2006/07, school-to-work programmes like Gateway and Youth Apprenticeships, and the $6.4 million enrolment system, which once all schools have been operating for a year will give us accurate and consistently updated enrolment information.
Why did the ministry sign a contract with a private provider, which means that students who are not enrolled and who are in contact with Child, Youth and Family or with the police will no longer be targeted to get back into school?
All students who are legally obliged to be in school are being targeted. Schools all around New Zealand are engaging in a variety of different initiatives to try to address this problem. One example is Rotorua Girls’ High School, which has reduced the number of Māori students leaving school with no formal qualifications from one in three 6 years ago to zero last year.
Why, in that same contract, does the ministry say that students who are excluded—so are not enrolled in school—will also not be targeted to get back into school?
The member clearly was not listening to my earlier answer. One student not in school is one student too many. This Government is absolutely committed to upskilling students and keeping them in school in New Zealand. That is why we have launched Schools Plus. It is all about the concerns the member has raised.
Why should we believe any of this Minister’s or this Government’s rhetoric about keeping students in school until they are 18 when there is a lost tribe of 6,000 kids not enrolled in any school, when there are 31,000 truants every day, when the Government cannot even keep them in school until they are 16, and when they disappear off the radar because they get into trouble the Government washes its hands of them?
The member once again is being very free and easy with the figures. The reality is that we have done a complete review of truancy services, increased the funding for it, introduced and supported programmes like Gateway and Youth Apprenticeships, and set up the electronic enrolment system, which in a year’s time will, for the first time ever, let us know exactly how many students are falling out of the system.
I seek leave to table a document outlining recent changes to the Non-enrolment Truancy Service, which shows excluded students who have contact with Child, Youth and Family or the police—