Palaszczuk Government adopts recommendations to lift school attendance rates

Published Thursday, 14 May, 2015 at 04:22 PM

Minister for Education and Minister for Tourism, Major Events, Small Business and the Commonwealth Games
The Honourable Kate Jones

The Palaszczuk Government will adopt all 11 recommendations of a parliamentary report to improve state school student attendance rates.

Education Minister Kate Jones today tabled the government’s response to the Parliament’s Education, Tourism and Small Business Committee’s 42nd Report on the Review of State School Attendance Rates.

Minister Jones said the report noted attendance rates had increased slightly since 2010.

“Overall attendance is steady around 91.1 percent but we are seeing improvement in Indigenous students’ attendance rates particularly,” she said.

“The proportion of Indigenous students with an attendance rate of 85 per cent or more increased from 59.9 per cent in 2013 to 60.9 per cent in 2014.

“But there is clearly still more to be done and that’s why we will continue to work with schools to ensure these positive trends continue.”

Ms Jones said the recommendations included the need to set firm attendance rate targets, improve the department’s Every Day Counts website and address issues about children’s attendance in the early years of schooling.

“We will investigate how early childhood programs can promote school attendance and improve the Every Day Countswebsite to better target groups with low attendance rates,” she said.

“We also need to look at creative ways to reach out to Indigenous families like the social media campaign featuring North Queensland Cowboys star Johnathon Thurston.

“It’s important all students attend school every day of the school year but there are valid reasons for students to be absent from school, including illness.”

Ms Jones said the Education Department actively monitored student attendance rates and provided schools with related data to help them monitor and identify attendance trends throughout each school year.

Download a copy of the report including the 11 recommendations here

Media contact: Matt Jutsum (Kate Jones’ Office) 3719 7530