Chris Baillie: ACT's plan to fight truancy with the threat of fines and withholding school funding

Early Edition with Ryan Bridge · Nov 27, 2022 · 3m

ACT believes its truancy plan will help what it’s calling a crisis... despite some criticism.

The party wants to make it mandatory for schools to report attendance daily, or risk losing funding.

It would also enable parents to be fined and divert Government truancy funding directly to schools to hire truancy officers.

ACT education spokesperson Chris Baillie says there'd be a process in place before a fine- with a traffic light system relating to attendance.

He says more than 30 percent non-attendance at the end of the term would mean they're referred to the ministry to assess what's…