The student climate strike and David Seymour’s tackling of truancy

EDITORIAL

Associate Education Minister David Seymour was playing an old schoolmaster this week, chiding young people protesting New Zealand climate policies.

“If students feel strongly about sending a message, they could have marched
on Tuesday when there was a nationwide teacher-only day,” he said on Friday.

“My expectation is that schools will treat students protesting today as explained but unjustified absences.”

Seymour said he appreciated that some students are “anxious about their futures.”

“But I want to make it clear that if they want to effect real change in the world, they need to turn up to school and get a good education now.”

“The previous Government said that protesting instead of attending school could be justified.”

Seymour referenced the national “truancy crisis” as a priority instead.

Both National and Act campaigned on greater use of prosecutions and fines of parents in cases of chronic absenteeism during the election campaigns. Act had also proposed instant fines in cases where a student kept missing school without a valid reason.

“Everything is on the table,” Seymour said in February.

The attendance figures for Term 4 of 2023 are not due until later this month. However, figures released in December last year showed only 46 per cent of school pupils attended school more than 90 per cent of the time in Term 3 of 2023 – down from 63 per cent in the third term of 2019, before Covid-19.

Chronic absenteeism (students who attend less than 70 per cent of the time) was also still high at 12.6 per cent after sitting around 7-8 per cent in earlier years.

There is clearly a pressing problem for schools, officials, and parents to tackle when it comes to truancy.

Seymour is right to investigate and examine any means that will ensure children attend class more often and give themselves the best shot at succeeding in life.

The students heading to climate protests, however, should not be the first cohort in his sights.

Many are extremely passionate about the cause they are campaigning for – as they should be given the threat scientists say a warming world poses.

Indeed, older generations remember with pride how Kiwis hit the streets opposing nuclear-powered ships in our waters, or the Springbok tour during apartheid-era South Africa.

The climate strikes aren’t all that different.

Seymour should be praised for treating truancy as a priority, but he should get his priorities right in the students most in need of his attention.