New Zealand set its school attendance target as one national figure — 80 percent attending regularly by 2030 — while ERO counted 18 percent of Māori students chronically absent against 10 percent nationally in Term 2, 2024

What is happening?

In 2024 the New Zealand Government adopted Government Target 6: by 2030, 80 percent of students should be attending school regularly, meaning present for more than 90 percent of the term. The baseline was 59.5 percent in Term 1, 2023. The target is written as one national figure.

The national figure has moved up. The Government reported 68.6 percent regular attendance in Term 1, 2026. For Term 2, a news report of the Ministry data gave 64.3 percent in 2026, up from 58.4 percent in Term 2, 2025.

The gap between groups inside that figure has not closed. The same report gave regular attendance for Māori students, who are counted within the national figure, as 49.1 percent in Term 2, 2026 and 43.7 percent in Term 2, 2025 — about 15 percentage points below the national rate in both years. The Education Review Office counted chronic absence, meaning attendance of 70 percent or less of the term, at 10 percent nationally in Term 2, 2024, against 18 percent for Māori students, 17 percent for Pacific students, 8 percent for New Zealand European students and 6 percent for Asian students.

Whose problem is this?

The body that sets the target and the body that funds the services that bring students back are both parts of central government. The group whose attendance sits furthest below the target is not scored separately by the target itself.

Where does this problem end?

The boundary matters because the rising national figure and the flat group gap are two different measurements of the same students. A reader who sees only the first would conclude the problem is closing, and a reader who sees only the second would miss that the national figure is genuinely moving.

What is the state now, and what should it be?

Now

Term 1 and Term 2 figures are kept in separate rows and are not compared with each other. The target baseline is a Term 1 figure, and the group figures above are Term 2 figures.

Should be

The Government states the target: 80 percent of students attending regularly by 2030, measured nationally. That is the only target stated in the sources opened here. None of them states a target for the size of the gap between groups, and this document does not supply one.

How big is it?

Between about 306,000 and 356,000 enrolled students were not attending regularly, on the Term 2 national rates for 2026 and 2025 applied to a school roll of 856,125 students as of 2025-07-01.

This is a count of students below the regular-attendance line of more than 90 percent of the term, so it includes students who attended most of the term as well as those who were chronically absent. It is a national count. The number of Māori students below the line cannot be derived from the sources opened here, because none of them gives the number of Māori students on the roll.

The chronic-absence rate by group is the sharper measure of the gap, but its most recent breakdown by ethnicity dates from Term 2, 2024. A later national chronic-absence figure was reported in search summaries and could not be opened, so it carries no weight here.

Under what conditions does it arise?

1. The target scores the aggregate. Target 6 is written as one national percentage. A national figure can rise while the distance between groups inside it stays the same, and that is what the reported Term 2 figures for 2025 and 2026 show. Nothing in the target wording opened here makes the size of that distance a measured objective.

2. The route for chronically absent students was saturated. After a school has tried its own measures, the next step is referral to a regional Attendance Service provider. The Education Review Office reported on 2024-10-16 that among the services it visited, caseloads ran from about 30 to more than 500 per adviser, that schools stopped referring students when they knew the service was already over capacity, and that about half of all schools did not refer to the service at all. ERO did not describe the spread of caseloads as a measure of inequity, and it may partly reflect differences in local need.

3. The heaviest need sits where the barriers are highest. Chronic absence was 18 percent at disadvantaged schools against 3 percent elsewhere in Term 2, 2024, and regular attendance in Term 2, 2026 was 48.6 percent at schools with greater socio-economic barriers against 74.1 percent at schools with fewer. The services that respond to absence therefore face their largest caseloads in the same places where the national figure is lowest.

4. The link from attendance to achievement is itself disputed. Researchers cited in public reporting differ on whether absence is a cause of lower achievement or a signal of other difficulties. That dispute shapes which kind of response each side calls for.

What has been tried?

The attempts run in three directions: a national target, more capacity for the services that bring students back, and a firmer legal route against caregivers. The Ministry described the equitable resourcing of the new service model in terms of reaching more students, and none of the sources opened here describes any of these attempts as aimed at the gap between ethnic groups.

What was found?

Why is it still unsolved?

Supply disparity — the students furthest below the target sit where the response capacity was most stretched, and the target that drives the effort counts every student in one number.

A single national percentage rewards any movement in the total. It can be raised by improving attendance where it is already closest to the line, and a policy judged by that number has no measured reason to prefer one group of students over another. The reported Term 2 figures show both the national rate and the Māori rate rising by five to six points between 2025 and 2026, so the distance between them held at about 15 points while the headline improved.

The support route is where supply matters. A student who does not respond to what the school can do is meant to be referred to an Attendance Service adviser. The Education Review Office found in 2024 that the advisers it visited carried caseloads from about 30 to more than 500, and that schools had stopped referring students when they knew the service was full. Chronic absence at the time was six times as high at disadvantaged schools as at others, so the demand for that route was concentrated in exactly the schools where its capacity mattered most.

The Government retendered the service in 2025 with more money and a stated aim of reaching up to twice as many students. No source opened here has measured what the new contracts changed, either in caseloads or in the gap between groups. Until that measurement exists, the published record shows a rising national figure, a gap of the same size inside it, and a response whose effect on that gap nobody has reported.

What observation would mean it is solved?

Candidates — (a) the gap between the national regular-attendance rate and the Māori rate narrows across several consecutive years of same-term figures (b) chronic absence by ethnic group and by school disadvantage converges in a published breakdown more recent than 2024 (c) an evaluation of the recontracted Attendance Service reports caseloads and referral rates across regions.

(a) alone can mislead. Both rates can rise together, as they did between 2025 and 2026, and the gap can narrow simply because one group was closer to a ceiling. Term 1 and Term 2 figures also differ systematically, so only same-term comparisons count.

(b) alone is incomplete. Chronic absence is a threshold measure. A group can move students from 65 to 75 percent attendance, clearing the chronic line without reaching regular attendance, and the breakdown would improve while the regular-attendance gap stayed where it was.

(c) alone measures effort, not outcome. Lower caseloads and higher referral rates show that the route has capacity; they do not show that referred students return. The three have to be read together, and (a) and (b) have to be read against the same term in each year.

What is it connected to?

Fills with researchthe gap in educational achievement between the same groups, the socio-economic conditions measured by the Equity Index, the separate problem of children not enrolled in school, and the prosecution of caregivers under the Education and Training Act 2020. Relation type and evidence grade were not confirmed in this round.

What these sources do not say

• Whether any government target for the gap between groups exists outside Target 6. The Target 6 factsheet opened here states one national figure. No source opened here addresses whether a separate target for Māori or Pacific attendance exists in another instrument.
• The Government position on the gap. No source opened here carries a statement from the Ministry of Education or the Government on why the gap between Māori students and the national rate has held, or what is meant to close it. The public Ministry statements found concern the recontracted service, which it said would be equitably resourced, and prosecutions, which it said are a last resort after other support has been tried.
• A breakdown of chronic absence by group after Term 2, 2024. The 2026 national chronic-absence figures were seen only in search summaries, and no breakdown by ethnicity or school disadvantage was found for them. Whether the chronic-absence gap has narrowed or widened since 2024 is therefore not known from these sources.
• What the 2025 recontracting changed. No source opened here reports caseloads, referral rates or group outcomes under the new contracts.
• Why the national figure rose. No source opened here separates the effect of campaigns, the prospect of prosecution, extra support and the fading of pandemic-era disruption. The Government release compares its figure of about 176,000 more students attending regularly with Term 1, 2022, a pandemic-affected term.
• The exact Term 2, 2026 national figure. One source gives 64.3 percent and another gives 64.2 percent, and neither states its extraction date.
• The distribution of the 34 prosecution cases by group or region, and the outcome of the case before the court. No source opened here gives an outcome for the one case that was before the court as of late April 2026, and nothing in this document anticipates it.
• Whether attendance causes achievement. Research cited in public reporting leaves open whether absence causes lower achievement or signals other difficulties. This document does not decide it.
• A report that chronic absence doubled over a decade. An Education Review Office release with that headline appeared in search results, but it could not be opened and nothing in this document relies on it.

See the evidence

The target and the chronic-absence breakdowns rest on documents opened directly — the DPMC factsheet, two Ministry of Education pages, one Ministry announcement and two Education Review Office reports. The Term 2 attendance figures for 2025 and 2026, including the Māori figures, come from a news report of Ministry data; the Ministry release behind them could not be opened, and a second source differs by 0.1 points on the national figure. The gap of about 15 percentage points is a subtraction of four reported figures and is not stated by any source. This is a Path A output (research-based definition), so observation_refs is empty and provenance_mode: press-derived.

People affected

Estimated range 305,637–356,148 As of Term 2, 2025 to Term 2, 2026, roll as of 2025-07-01

Sensitivity The range spans two Term 2 rates a year apart applied to one roll count, so the low end pairs a 2025 roll with a 2026 rate. It counts every student below the regular-attendance line of more than 90 percent of the term, so it includes students who attended most of the term and is far larger than the chronically absent group, which was 10 percent nationally in Term 2, 2024. A second source gives 64.2 rather than 64.3 percent for Term 2, 2026, which would move the low end up by under 900 students. The number of Māori students below the line, which is the core of the gap, cannot be derived because no source opened gives the Māori roll. If the roll includes schools outside the attendance data, the range is somewhat too high; if roll growth after mid-2025 is counted, the low end is somewhat too low.

Regional breakdown No source opened gives attendance or roll counts by region. Splitting the national rate by regional population would be proportional allocation, and the published breakdowns show absence concentrated by school disadvantage rather than spread with population