Via Winston Peters
Today new truancy figures were released showing only half of senior school kids regularly attended school in term four last year – that’s worse than in 2021.
Unbelievably the Ministry of Education, and the Minister, don’t even know how many truancy officers are in schools or how much money they are spending on them.
This is a ticking time bomb for the future of our country and the future of our young people.
No longer are ‘truants’ a specific small group of ‘at risk’ kids – we now have let this new culture of educational inertia fester into affecting half of our school students.
Education should be seen as an essential national investment – not an expense. It’s hard to believe the government has so grossly neglected to manage our greatest asset.
Hipkins passed the buck on this one when he stepped up to be PM to start covering up the mess he helped Jacinda Ardern make.
All of Hipkins past portfolios are a mess.
Let’s hope the voters don’t forget!
