- Hon David Seymour
Associate Education Minister David Seymour is welcoming the passing of the Education Training Amendment Bill (No 2) at third reading. The Bill makes attendance management plans mandatory from Term 1 next year.
"When the Government takes education seriously, so do parents, students, and schools. School attendance matters for the future of this country, and we are fixing it," Mr Seymour says.
"STAR means no child is left behind. Every student, parent, teacher and school has a role to play. Each school will develop their own STAR system to suit their community and school, based on a standard framework.
"STAR stands for Stepped Attendance Response. It means there are escalating responses for declining attendance. For example, different responses could kick in at 90 per cent, 80 per cent and 70 per cent attendance.
"Many schools have already implemented their own attendance management plan, aligned with the STAR. The response to the STAR system has been positive. Educators have been in touch to express their support, which tells me we're establishing a culture where school attendance is essential.
"The Education Review Office's attendance attitude report is further proof that we are creating a culture where attending school is important. The report showed that parent and student attitudes to school attendance have improved under this Government.
"What we are doing is working. Data shows rising attendance under this Government. In Term 2 2025 58.4 per cent of students attended school regularly, compared to 39.6 per cent in Term 2 of 2022.
"As our attendance action plan continues to roll out, I expect attendance rates to continue to improve.
"At the start of next year frontline attendance services will be more accountable, better at effectively managing cases, and data-driven in their responses. To achieve this, they will soon have access to a new case management system and better data monitoring, and their contracts will be more closely monitored.
Budget 2025 included $140 million of additional funding package to improve attendance over the next four years."
Under the new model, attendance services will:
- be able to reach twice as many chronically absent and non-enrolled students
- be resourced to spend time understanding why students are not attending school and working out what changes or supports are needed to increase their attendance
- collaborate more with family, schools and other agencies to support the development and implementation of plans for each student to get back to school
- allocate up to 3 per cent of their contract funding to address students' unmet basic needs related to attendance, like school uniforms, devices, stationery, and transport
- be given stronger levers to escalate cases of chronic non-attendance where parents are unwilling to engage in solutions.
"Attending school is the first step towards achieving positive educational outcomes. Positive educational outcomes lead to better health, higher incomes, better job stability and greater participation within communities. These are opportunities that every student deserves," Mr Seymour says.
