Northern Territory government clamps down on truancy, slapping fines on parents of absentee children

ABC NEWS (Australia)

In the latest attempt to get Territory kids to school. A new brand of truancy officer will have the power to issue fines to the parents of absentee children.  The government refreshing an approach employed by Tony Abbott in 2014, which experts say had mixed results.

Transcript

00:00Ten years ago, the Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister hit the streets of Yuendumu, alongside

00:07a crew of new attendance officers.

00:10Do you think Ezekiel would go to school?

00:13Today the NT government announcing a fresh crackdown.

00:17People need to remember that not sending your children to school is against the law.

00:21No new laws are required, as existing powers already allow education staff to find parents

00:28whose children regularly miss school.

00:31If parents don't get their kids to school, we're going to give them every opportunity

00:35to do so, but at some point in time, the school attendance officer can issue a fine of I think

00:41$370.

00:43In Yuendumu between 2014 and 2017, the local schools saw attendance lift 3% after the arrival

00:51of the Abbott government's yellow shirts.

00:54Territory-wide, attendance dropped 3% over the same period, and has since dropped a further

01:005%.

01:01Successive strategies since then get an F for fail from those who've seen them come

01:06and go.

01:07Sometimes it's an attendance officer, sometimes it's a truancy officer, sometimes it's a school

01:11engagement officer, but there's no evaluative evidence to suggest that any of those approaches

01:18have made any difference to attendance rates.

01:24Mr Gunther also points out there are remote schools with attendance over 90% doing things

01:30very differently.

01:31They want to be there at school because it's a fun place to be, it's an engaging place

01:36to be, it's a welcoming place to be, both for parents and the children.

01:40The government says there are 35 new attendance officers across the Territory this month,

01:45with $3 million in extra funding per year to support more.

01:49And unlike previous iterations of the policy, these new attendance officers will be trained

01:53up to issue warnings and fines.

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