As part of the Government’s attendance action plan, today Associate Minister of Education David Seymour announced the release of a new daily attendance dashboard that has been published on Education Counts. 

Daily school attendance data now available | Beehive.govt.nz

Daily attendance – Education Counts

The interactive dashboard will be updated every Monday and will show a national average of how many students are at school on any given day. Visitors can filter by region or day to understand shifts in attendance over time.  

The purpose of the dashboard is to raise public awareness. It is not designed to provide information about students who are frequently missing school, which remains the purpose of the termly attendance reports.

No further work is required by schools, but we encourage you to select the ‘automated weekly submission’ option in your SMS to ensure your weekly data is submitted on time. 
You should remain focused on identifying students who have persistent and regular unjustified absences and providing support to these students, with a focus on lifting regular attendance levels. The Government has set a target of 80% regular attendance each term by 2030. To achieve this, we are advising schools that they need to aspire to reach an average daily attendance rate above 94%. 

The Minister has also announced changes to attendance data regulations. From Term 1 2025 all state and state-integrated schools (excluding distance schools) will be required to provide attendance data to us, daily. Specified kura boards have until July 2025.  

While there is no immediate action required, any schools | kura who are not providing attendance data to us are encouraged to speak with their local Te Mahau office. More information will be released in due course. 

Following engagement with a sample of schools in Term 1, the Every Day Matters report has been refreshed to better meet your needs and will be issued this month. The refreshed report highlights attendance patterns in your school and provides actionable insights to improve student attendance. 

Further information and support can be found here: 

Student attendance: Guide for schools and kura – Ministry of Education 

We are collecting Term 1 attendance data from state and state-integrated schools that have an electronic attendance register (eAR). Data is used for monitoring national attendance levels and supporting improved attendance. If you haven’t yet submitted your attendance data, do so by 10 May. 

You can find instructions on how to submit at:

Attendance collection (electronic) – Education Counts

Resources to support recording student | ākonga attendance can be found here: 

Attendance code resources – Ministry of Education