Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'd just like to echo some of the words of our chair Marja Lubeck and the thanks to the submitters—the 55 oral submitters that came along and spoke really passionately about what happened at their schools within their kāhui akos. We heard from principals teachers attendance officers and parents and students alike. They all did a great job and informed the report that you see today.The report starts by talking about the importance of attendance when it comes to achievement. It talks about the fact that there is no safe level of non-attendance at school. In my view and the National Party view education is your passport your ticket to the future and any level of non-attendance is diminishing your ability—or our students' ability—to reach their full potential. It's really interesting to take a look back as we did in the report about how we used to collect data and how advanced we are today and the fact that it's done electronically. And credit to the Government that in 2020 it was changed to mean that we collect data every single term.Unfortunately one of the things that came out of the report is the fact that there is a huge delay a huge lag when it comes to that data. So while we might collect data electronically every term the delay in getting that data to the ministry to politicians and to the Minister is many many many months. In fact it was only last week that the data from term 4 attendance was provided to the Opposition but we know that it was only a couple of weeks before that that the Minister had it on his desk and the Associate Minister had it on her desk. Now the question begs: how can the ministry direct resource to those schools most in need when there is a five-month delay in that data coming forward? I had a conversation with officials just in the last few days and they agreed on that front and said that they are working to try and bring that down. But the fact that there is such a very long lag in getting that data is a real problem.One of the other things that came out of this is the fact that schools are not required to give their data—it is done on a purely voluntary basis. Now while most schools do in fact give their data across there are a number of schools who don't. In the National Party minority view we made the strong point that it should be mandatory for every school to make their data available. It should be collected and made available very quickly by the ministry and it should be publicly available.I think it's worthy of talking about the history because Marja Lubeck talked about the history. Indeed there has been a decline over a very long time. But I would like to point out that the changes made in 2013 were for the reason that at the time the National Party were concerned that there were children falling through the cracks—at 66 percent I think; in 2019 we're at 58 percent attending regularly. Back then 66 percent and we were very concerned about that. We wanted to give responsibility to varieties of groups especially community groups and iwi who knew their people and were we believed in a better place to connect with those communities engage with those families and engage with those students and get them back to school.It's worth of noting that in the two years that followed those changes the rates went up to just under 70 percent of children attending regularly. In fact in the just over four years between 2013 and 2017 when we left office the rates of attendance only dropped by 3 percent. So we went from 66 percent to 63 percent attending regularly. So yes it was a decline. But the decline really came in the two years between 2017 and 2019 when we saw a 6 percent drop. Now I'm not convinced that the method of delivering the service is the one big silver bullet—it may be that this Government decide to change it. I'm not sure that rearranging those chairs is going to make a significant difference I think there are other things—which I will go into. But I think it's worthy of noting that over four years since the change there was a 3 percent drop and in the two years after Labour took office a 6 percent drop.I want to talk about also the effects of COVID. In the report when you read it it does mention the fact that we were at just over 58 percent of children attending regularly in 2019 indicating that this was a problem. You can't blame it on COVID although COVID I would argue has made things much worse and I'll talk about that in a moment. But this existed well before COVID.COVID made things much worse. Although the regular attendance data looks pretty similar when you look at the chronically truant data which has exploded over the last couple of years that's where we need to really put our efforts into. In the last five years those numbers have over doubled. These are kids who are attending school less than 70 percent of the time. If you take it down to decile 1 schools those kids are attending school 40 percent of the time. So it's pretty shocking and we need to do a lot about it.But the point is that over the two years of COVID we saw an explosion of these chronically truant kids. In fact in term 4 alone last year—the data that we saw come out last week—we added an extra 10000 kids to that list. We have 70000 kids who are chronically truant who are not attending school regularly—in fact less than 70 percent of the time. That was 60 percent in term 3. But can I point out that in term 4 of 2019 right before we went into COVID that was 40000. We have added nearly 30000 kids to the chronically truant list. Can I point out that half of those kids are Māori. We have failed over COVID the most vulnerable low decile and Māori populations. We have to put a lot more effort into those chronically truant kids.We talk about the ministry having a strategy and that's all very well and good but the point that I want to make today is that a number of the principals that came and spoke to us—and there are a couple in particular who I'll speak of—made some really good points.Firstly there was a woman her name was Karen Wellington a principal in Upper Hutt of a decile 3 school—60 percent Māori 50 percent Pasifika and had a 90 percent attendance rate. Now the points that she made resonated with me. She made points like We set expectations with parents the relationships we have with our families are key we have a plan for truancy there is accountability in our school for the rates of attendance we phone we email contact is ongoing and there is constant contact with these parents." They have a plan for those chronically truant kids—they are immediately reported by teachers. There is immediate action. There are two calls and the principal gets in her car she drives to the student's home and she gets them out of bed. It is that accountability that's so important.Mark Brown from Newtown Primary School—a school of 400 kids 70 percent of which are non-English speaking—again echoed those same comments. They have a plan they have systems in place they have strategies expectations on parents they make it easy for kids to get to school they work closely with attendance officers and their Māori kids attend school 90 percent of the time. I just want to bring to the House's attention a comment that he made that resonated with me when he said schools need to be proactive and not accept that it's OK to not turn up.Now what worries me over COVID is that we were asleep at the wheel. We put billions of dollars into keeping workers attached to their businesses and yet when it came to students attached to schools: almost nothing. The one thing that this Government did was put $50 million into a contestable fund that officials have admitted didn't have any targets didn't have any outcomes didn't have any expectations and they weren't able to measure those outcomes. They did a post-report they did a survey of schools after that but that weren't able to—in fact there was a briefing to the Minister which actually says they weren't able to confidently say that money increased attendance.What I'm really worried about is that the Minister will do the same thing again and she announced a $40 million package over the next few years to reduce truancy. Those officials I met with the other day again said there were no targets no expectations no accountability tied to that money. And how could that have gone through a Budget process with no outcomes? I'm worried we're going to see the same things happen over again where we pour money in with no set expectations. Someone at the ministry needs to be accountable for school truancy rates as do principals and boards of trustees. Thank you."