Larry Williams Drive

Look, I really want to believe that 82 new truancy officers are going to turn around our falling attendance rates at schools.  But we live in the real world, so here are some real world facts: We have 2500 schools and 815,000 students in this country. That means each of those officers is going to have to cover 31 schools each. Each of those officers is responsible for 10,000 students each. If the figures are to be believed and 54 percent were truant in term three last year, then each of those officers are supposed to chase up 5400 students regularly. Obviously, there are already some existing truancy officers trying to do the job, but the trouble is; we don’t how many, because the Government doesn’t know how many. And it’s probably not a lot. The reason that this is one of Chris Hipkins’ first announcements in the first month of his Prime Ministership is because he knows it’s a vote winner. He knows we’re worried about our kids and he knows cracking down on truancy will be popular.  But it’s only popular if i