DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE
Some recent statistics and a commentary on non-attendance in school
A paper prepared for the Learning Choice Expo conducted by the Dusseldorp Skills Forum
Sydney, 23-24 June 2004
Graeme Withers Senior Research Fellow Australian Council for Educational Research © 2004 Dusseldorp Skills Forum DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 1 ______
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES 3
LIST OF TABLES 3
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4
1 INTRODUCTION 7 1.1 Why non-attendance is an issue 7 1.2 A broader view – the notion of “social contract” 8 1.3 Key reasons for unauthorised non-attendance 10
2 NON-ATTENDANCE AS REVEALED IN PUBLIC RECORDS 11 2.1 Australia 11 2.1.1 South Australia 12 2.1.2 Queensland 13 2.1.3 Victoria 14 2.1.4 Tasmania 15 2.1.5 Other states 16 2.1.6 General comments 16 2.2 New Zealand 16 2.3 England 17 2.4 Scotland 18 2.5 Clarification of reasons for exclusion, suspension or cancellation of enrolment 19 2.6 Hidden non-attendance 19 2.7 Australian performance compared with other jurisdictions 19
3 INITIATIVES TO LESSEN RATES OF NON-ATTENDANCE 21 3.1 Methods of monitoring attendance 21 3.2 What is known to work in lessening truancy rates 21 3.3 Australia 22 3.3.1 Trends in policy responses 22 3.3.2 Victoria 22 3.3.3 South Australia 24 3.3.4 Queensland 25 3.3.5 Western Australia 26 3.4 The United Kingdom 28 3.5 New Zealand 28 2 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______
4 DISCUSSION 30 4.1 Diversity and flexibility of curriculum provision in general 30 4.2 The Middle Years of Schooling 31 4.3 More rigorous record-keeping and publicity 32 4.4 Fine lines 32 4.5 Overseas students 33 4.6 An opportunity to fashion powerful strategies for combating non-attendance 34
5 RECOMMENDATIONS 39
REFERENCES AND WORKS CONSULTED 41
APPENDIX A 45
RECORD-KEEPING AND PUBLICATION BY SYSTEMS AND SCHOOLS New Zealand 45 Scotland 46
APPENDIX B 47
THE RANGE OF RISK FACTORS FACED BY JUVENILES AND ADOLESCENTS Two big caveats 47 Metafactors 47 Risk Factors: The Individual 48 Risk Factors: The Family 49 Risk Factors: The School 50 Risk Factors: Community and Society 51
APPENDIX C 52
SOME NOTES ON METHODOLOGY C1 Categories and descriptors of non-attendance 52 C2 Searches 52
APPENDIX D 53
MCEETYA’S PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT AND REPORTING TASKFORCE Terms of Reference 53 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 3 ______
LIST OF FIGURES
1 Extract No 1 from the Social Exclusion Unit’s report Truancy and School Exclusion 26 2 Extract No 2 from the Social Exclusion Unit’s report Truancy and School Exclusion 27 3 “Everyone must be learning something” 35 4 Schools on the Road to Lifelong Learning 36 5 International Approaches to the Idea of Key Competencies 37 6 Principles for Programs of Prevention and Intervention for At-risk Young People 38
LIST OF TABLES
1 Published Absence Statistics in South Australia: 1997 and 2002 compared 13 2 Average Days of Absence per annum 1999-2002 in Victoria, by Level of Schooling 14 3 Average Days of Absence per annum 1999-2002 in Victoria, in the Middle Years of Schooling 14 4 Percentage Attendance per annum 1999-2002 in Victoria, in the Middle Years of Schooling 15 5 Tasmania: published attendance statistics for the period 2000-2003 15 6 Percentage Attendance per annum 1999-2003 in One Australian State, in the Middle Years of Schooling 16 7 Absence rates in Scottish schools, September 2000 – June 2003 18 8 Percentage of school time accounted for by authorised and unauthorised absences: Three countries compared, 2001-2003 18 9 Selected country means and standard deviations for the PISA index of participation among 15-year-old students 20 4 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This paper was prepared to update and comment on the statistics on school non- attendance in schools of the Australian States and Territories gathered for DEST by Ainley and Lonsdale (2000), and supplement it with information from other international sources where available. It also explores recent initiatives, both within Australia and overseas, by systems or schools to reduce wilful student absenteeism, for whatever reason it might occur.
It considers the various categories and descriptors associated with non-attendance, and addresses the reasons why non-attendance is an important issue for systems and schools. In doing so it explores various personal, educational and societal risk factors associated with unauthorised non-attendance, or truancy.
The non-attendance statistics which are immediately available in public record have been summarised, for various Australian states, New Zealand, Scotland and England. As well, various initiatives to lessen rates of non-attendance in those places, such as changes to monitoring methods, schools’ relationships with their parents and communities, changes to curriculum offerings, and school climate, are described. Proposals for enhancing the range, depth of detail and utility of attendance record- keeping and data collection are also made.
Overall, the best guess is that the situation in Australia has not materially improved since 2000 in terms of lessening rates of non-attendance, truancy or suspensions, and is likely to be slightly worse. What patchy data we do have indicates that days absent per student, and rates of unexplained absence, continue to rise very slightly, in most Years of schooling. From one calendar year to another there may be no quantum leap, but across several years the rises seem quite significant.
However, alongside these figures, there are in most States clear indications that non- attendance is being taken somewhat more seriously than in the past. Actions by Ministries polarise in focussing on the key message that the attendance issue is not exclusively owned by schools and that parents and the community have large and important roles to play. Stronger links are expected to be forged between schools, the communities and inter-community agencies such as: departmental truancy sections; police; regional youth organisations; school-focussed youth services; the regional local government network; and major shopping centres.
Policy responses around the Australian state ministries seem to be of two main broad kinds: one we might call punitive, the other curricular. DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 5 ______
In the first, schools may be required to make greater efforts at surveillance of the whereabouts of their students, effect faster contact with parents of truants (for example, through SMS or e-mails), and with threats of legal action offered to combat persistent non-attendance.
In the second, the aim is to change the curricular offerings and ethos of schools so that they become more attractive places to students. The two kinds are not mutually exclusive responses. For example, professional development programs sponsored by Departments and other school-based activities, notable for their strong emphasis on parent involvement, and changes to curriculum, school policies and organisation, and school ethos are often seen to be essential concomitants of the more regulatory or punitive attempts to diminish levels of unauthorised attendance.
Five recommendations are developed from these findings:
Recommendation 1
It is recommended that, in the clarification and formulation of policies aimed at limiting or decreasing non-attendance, measures to track students are accompanied by school initiatives of a more general kind, aimed at improving the quality of school life and learning conditions for those individuals or groups most at risk of disengagement and truancy. Such initiatives should be the subject of on-going evaluation, and successful strategies shared amongst the educational community.
Recommendation 2
It is recommended that responsibility for collection, interpretation and reporting of a wide range of school attendance data be added to the Terms of Reference of the Performance Measurement and Reporting Taskforce established by MCEETYA.
Recommendation 3
It is recommended that, as a minimum, presentation and publication of the data collected through Recommendation 1 should clearly: distinguish between authorised and unauthorised non-attendance; distinguish between long and short suspensions, exclusions and cancellations; itemise reasons for suspensions and exclusions; indicate rises and falls in proportions from calendar year to year; indicate rises and falls in proportions from one Year of schooling to another; distinguish the existence or otherwise of appeal mechanisms in cases of expulsions. 6 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______Recommendation 4
It is recommended that the collection proposed in Recommendations 1 and 2 should incorporate the full range of such data from all schools (including Independent and Catholic schools) which are in receipt of public funds.
Recommendation 5
It is recommended that consideration be given to at least matching the range of attendance data and their public availability as collected and published by the New Zealand Ministry of Education. Attention might also be given to that country’s expected relative balance of responsibilities between parents, schools and systems, and its promoted programs to counteract disengagement and low participation of its various socioeconomic and ethnic school sub-populations.
[A slightly expanded version of some of these recommendations appears as Section 5 of the paper.] DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 7 ______
1 INTRODUCTION
The main intent of this paper is two-fold. One is to update and comment on the statistics on school non-attendance in schools of the Australian States and Territories gathered for DEST by Ainley and Lonsdale (2000), and supplement it with information from other sources where available. The other is to explore recent initiatives, both within Australia and overseas, by systems or schools to reduce wilful student absenteeism, for whatever reason it might occur.
Many, maybe most, student absences are legitimate: temporary sickness or long-term ill-health; parentally approved withdrawals for family functions, holidays, appointments, and so on. However, it is often difficult to account for the amount of time that students elect to (or are made to by the school) spend off learning tasks, or outside the real time allocated for curriculum engagement, when reasons which have to do with their personal inclinations or behaviour are taken into account. A child’s absence because he or she is unwell has to be accepted and registered as part of the catalogue. It is sometimes impossible to decide when such claims are genuine, and even when they are, they may still bear some relationship to the problems of personality or personal development (e.g. migraines; minor or pathological depression) related to non-attendance on a broader view.
1.1 Why non-attendance is an issue
It is an issue because, in most jurisdictions, the law says it is, or makes it so. Attendance is part of a two-way accountability system, whereby students below a given age, and their parents, are accountable for maximum school attendance, just as systems and schools are accountable for providing the largest amount of professionally delivered education possible given the circumstances of the child. Beyond the school leaving age, systems and schools are still accountable for encouraging participation and providing diverse and quality educational experience for those who desire it. Records of who is (and who is not) present in school to receive these benefits have always been kept. Likewise records of “why not” (absence notes; parent interviews) have usually been maintained. But over the past decade, such matters have achieved a greater prominence, due to suspicions (and evidence in some places) that non-attendance levels have been rising, particularly in what are now conventionally called “the middle years of schooling”, when students and parents are still legally obliged to maximise attendance.
Whether or not actual truancy is rising (and for whatever reasons if so), more needs to be known about rates and reasons of non-attendance, and in many instances the detail and scrupulousness of record-keeping by schools upgraded accordingly. Below, in Appendix A, a model for such activity is given, drawn from several contemporary sources where systems have deemed it as a due part of their legal responsibility, and hence incumbent on their administrative process, to monitor rates and reasons fully and directly. 8 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______
However, collection and publication of statistics, while telling a necessarily public story, are not the whole point. The “whys” of truancy are certainly as important as the “how oftens”, but the implications of the story need to be translated into action, to whatever degree truancy or other forms of non-attendance occur within a school and a system. This paper approaches this issue in two ways: below there are brief reviews of three processes or programs inaugurated by education systems to reduce non- attendance substantially within their jurisdictions. Further, as background to what these programs are attempting to redress, prevent or intervene in, Appendix B provides a comprehensive description of the risk factors faced by all young people, of whatever age, which might at some time affect their development. Many of these have the potential to divert them from a seamless acquisition of fundamental knowledge necessary for successful and satisfying lives as adult citizens. In the face of the diversity and intricacy of such a list, not to mention the power of some risk factors to upset fundamentally and seriously the normal processes of maturation and personal development, the wonder is that so many young people avoid, overcome or at least cope with the stresses involved. Or, to state it more positively, the wonder of human growth is that, faced with such a range of possible challenges and risks, so many young people trace a more or less normal path of personal development from the stages of childhood through puberty to young adulthood.
Non-attendance is also a key issue for broader reasons. Failure to be in school long enough (early leaving) or often enough (truancy) to gain basic skills and knowledge has personal and social costs. Unemployment, poverty, homelessness and minor or gross criminal activity can often be linked to this basic failure. The community bears the social and economic costs, which escalate if any trends to increased non- compliance with the laws of compulsory school attendance are not noticed and action taken to remedy the situation.
1.2 A broader view – the notion of “social contract”
Recently, in the Australian literature, a view of non-attendance issues somewhat broader and more complex than that essayed above, has emerged. We might term this (to use a somewhat old-fashioned term) a “social contract” approach, whereby the balance of responsibilities for governments (and their agencies, not just education departments), schools, parents, students and communities is seen to be in constant flux, or contention depending on one’s angle of view.
To start with an extreme angle (and not Australian): following legislation in 2001, in May 2002, the British mother of two daughters was gaoled for two months for failure to stop two of her five daughters from truanting. In March this year the same mother was gaoled again, for recidivist truanting by one of them. Family holidays also became an issue, with £100 on-the-spot fines being mandated for parents who kept their children out of school for more than two weeks in a school year. (Fines for parents of truants are mooted for at least one Australian State, if not already in place.) The background is provided by something British newspapers refer to as “Zero DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 9 ______Tolerance Truanting Policy” (e.g., The Guardian, 27 February, 2003) but for which no documentation can be readily obtained. (It emanates from a 1996 party election manifesto, which also pledged the introduction of child night curfew legislation, now in place for those 15 and under).
Less extreme angles on the notion of the social contract incumbent on parents and governments emerge in the literature. A recent paper (Durbach and Moran, 2004) discusses the right to education from international and local perspectives, including availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability. It looks for legislative, administrative and common law provisions for these themes in government responses to their obligations as partners in the broad contract. Another piece of recent work (Buckingham, 2003), which concentrating on, and promoting the wider publication of, school academic performance data as part of what her subtitle calls ‘Public Accountability’, also brings attendance issues into the argument about what information should be readily available to parents when they come to fulfilling their part of the social contract by sending their children to school.
Admission of variations to an overarching set of “Rights, Roles and Responsibilities” (Durbach and Moran’s title for their 2004 paper), and the subset of rules on attendance are commonly allowed. Migratory Indigenous students in this country, and Travellers’ (previously gypsy or Romany) children in the United Kingdom, are not subject to the same strictures about attendance which might affect other young people. Occasionally the variations are impromptu, sometimes illegal (for example, a reportedly large number of Heads of British schools refuse to start due proceedings for the £100 on-the-spot fines mentioned above).
Given the continuing autonomy of Australian State and Territory government education systems, which yields a plethora of responses to meeting their obligations for ‘availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability’, a consensus or common framing of a social contract which establishes and protects a due, equitable and balance of responsibilities between the partners will be difficult to achieve. However the National Goals of Schooling emerged, and are reviewed, with consensus and consent being achieved between partners who had been previously quite territorially jealous of their independence.
In so far as attendance is concerned, “Adaptability” looms large as a major factor. It may be that the relative lack of adaptability (enshrined in legislated terms like “core curriculum” and involved in processes such as tertiary entrance examinations) is one of the matters which encourages divergence rather than engagement. Several times in the material which follows, the provision of alternative, student-sensitive, and student-directed curricular offerings or programs of study are mentioned as ameliorating disenchantment, disengagement and disappearance. 10 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______
1.3 Key reasons for unauthorised non-attendance
A brief review of the literature suggests the following as a basic list:
family relationships; family values; ethnic values; excessive home responsibilities; peer pressures (friends and enemies); strong attachment to friends or siblings in trouble with the police; weak reading skills; anxiety about course deadlines; fear of bullying; dislike of particular lessons or particular teachers; perceived irrelevance of the curriculum.
[For a summary of personal, social/community and school factors, see Ainley and Lonsdale, 2000:47-48. See also Appendix B for a more comprehensive description of risk-factors faced by children as they grow up.]
However it should be noted that while each may in fact be a discrete cause in certain circumstances, quite often variables such as these (and others) are interrelated so intricately that real causality is hard to determine. It can been argued that there is no such thing as a typical early school leaver or a typical truant – the flux of reasons for either behaviour can be very broad, and often reasons for school disengagement develop or change. For example, the transition from primary school to secondary administrative arrangements and educational styles, if not carefully monitored and supported, can create disengagement where there was none before, or exacerbate any problems which had begun to surface earlier.
Ask the students for their reasons for unauthorised non-attendance, and their answers would probably remain much the same as those given to Oerlemans and Jenkins by Western Australian students back in 1998: social estrangement; meaninglessness; powerlessness; normlessness
What would make the difference? fewer compulsory subjects; a friendlier school; relaxation of school uniform policy; more free time on site; a learning environment closer to adult conditions. DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 11 ______
2 NON-ATTENDANCE AS REVEALED IN PUBLIC RECORDS
Strong claims are made about the extent of non-attendance, though detail is somewhat harder to come by. For example, Elliott (2004) avers “a world-wide trend to suspend students from school … In the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand schools are suspending students, mainly boys, in record numbers.” Statistical evidence is somewhat sparser. For example, a thorough search of web-sites for Ministries or Education Departments in all Canadian provinces yielded none in the public domain, though records may well be kept by the systems.
2.1 Australia
It is still extremely difficult to estimate the extent of non-attendance in schools in this country. This despite Recommendations 1, 2 and 3 in the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training’s 1996 report, Truancy and Exclusion from School (page x) advocating: the collection of national data on the incidence of truancy, formal and informal exclusion and expulsion; developing a national system for monitoring the transfer of students between schools; precise statements for the grounds and procedures associated with each category of exclusion; parent information and school training materials on procedures for suspensions, exclusion and expulsion, including mechanisms of appeal.
Searches of documentation reveal the existence of much information relating to dot points 3 and 4 in virtually all systems, but the overall capture remains piecemeal and certainly has no national consistency, which appears to have been an aim of the recommendations as discussed and presented in the report. Certainly no data for any of the four points appear to be available for non-government schools and systems, which educate a substantial proportion of Australian young people.
Data to update the 2000 findings (Ainley and Lonsdale) were sought from all State systems, and received from only a few, so it has not been possible to repeat fully the information gathering performed by Ainley and Lonsdale for their paper. All State and Territory systems were contacted, and when approached all agreed to update the earlier figures to include the years 2000-2003. However actual positive responses were received from only three States, one of which later withdrew permission to use the table provided. In another case, the request was interpreted as a request to conduct research in schools, and consideration would only be given after one month, too late for inclusion in this paper. Whether the general paucity was because they do not exist, or a disinclination to make data public, or from some other administrative difficulty, is not absolutely clear. 12 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______What was clear, from several of the contacts’ reactions to the request for data, was that attendance is currently a big issue with most Australian systems - where the impetus for review and the reluctance to provide information actually stems from, however, is, once again, not determinable. (Most of the data reported below come from web-sites in the public domain or press publications.) The importance is underlined by the publication (30 April 2004) of a DEST Ministerial media release entitled Time for Transparency in School Performance. This outlines a policy change to make receipt of federal government funding “conditional on state governments and school authorities publicly releasing school performance information for every school”. This information, alongside academic performance data, includes drop out rates and attendance data “which should be available for the parents of children in Australian schools”. Though the term “school authorities” is slightly ambiguous, the initiative appears to apply only to State governments and school authorities, and not to the Catholic or Independent sectors of Australian education.
Overall, the best guess is that the situation has not materially improved since 2000 in terms of lessening rates of non-attendance, truancy or suspensions, and is likely to be slightly worse. What data we do have indicates that days absent per student, and rates of unexplained absence, continue to rise very slightly, in most Years of schooling. From one calendar year to another there may be no quantum leap, but across several years the rises seem quite significant. For example, see Table 1 below.
2.1.1 South Australia
Some published material is available (South Australia Police, 2004:7-8) relating to a survey undertaken in South Australian government schools during Term 2, 2002 by DECS. This reports that:
the overall attendance rate [all students in all schools across the whole term] was 91.1%; in Term 2, 10.1% students were absent for more than 10 days [out of a possible 50]; students’ absences in Years 2-5 were between 7% and 7.2%; Reception [known in other States as Prep or Kindergarten] students had the highest absence rate of all primary students at 9.1%; absentee rates are higher for secondary than for primary students, as are unexplained absences; the highest absentee rate is in Year 10; girls have a higher absence rate (9.0%) than boys (8.8%); Indigenous absence rate was 17.2% (almost 25% occurring on a Friday).
Table 1 allows a comparison with some results from a similar survey conducted during the same term in 1997 (South Australia, Department of Education, Training and Employment, 1999:1ff): DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 13 ______Table 1: Published Absence Statistics in South Australia: 1997 and 2002 compared
1997 2002 percentages percentages [ N = 109,629] Overall absence rate 7.4 8.9 Reception students absence rate 7.2 9.1 Year 3 and Year 5 absence rate 5.6 both years between 7 and 7.2 Girls’ absence rate 7.5 9.0 Boys’ absence rate 7.3 8.8 Indigenous absence rate 16.6 17.2
Any special factors concerning the two survey administrations which might have contributed to the rises are not clear from the two sources.
2.1.2 Queensland
The Department of Education’s Annual Report 2002-2003 includes a summary of Queensland’s state school disciplinary absences for Term 4 2002 to term 2 2003 (published as Appendix 11a: page 82). In that Term 4, the Department introduced a School Disciplinary Absence Collection System. The absences are categorised as short suspension (1-5 days); long suspension (6-20 days); suspensions with recommendation for exclusion; cancellation of enrolment.
Average absence rates under the conditions above (rates per thousand students per term, based on total enrolment data) are 17.4, 1.5, 0.5 and 0.4 respectively. No other information, for example distinguishing between primary or secondary school rates, is given.
In the same report (Appendix 11b) a table lists the reasons for school disciplinary absences under the same categories. These are: “absences” [otherwise not particularised, but presumed to include illness]; “ conduct prejudicial to the good order and management of the school” [not defined]; verbal or non-verbal misconduct; physical misconduct; property misconduct; substance misconduct; persistently disruptive behaviour adversely affecting others; refusal to participate in the program of instruction. All can result in short or long suspensions and exclusion, but only the last two (italicised) caused cancellation of enrolment. The second and third reasons 14 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______(underlined) make up together just over half (9.2) of the short suspension rate per thousand students.
An article in the Brisbane Sunday Mail (11 April 2004), entitled “Our Truancy Crisis”, focussed on Education Queensland’s statistics showing absences among secondary school students. Rates ranged from an average of 14.2 days per annum at Year 8 level to 17.8 days at Year 12. The overall average for all five Year levels was 16.4. It was further reported that “almost half” the absences “were unexplained and therefore unauthorised”. No absenteeism figures for primary students were available.
2.1.3 Victoria
This state has regularly and for some years published overall average days of absence per student in Government schools, and detail by Year level.
Table 2: Average Days of Absence per annum 1999-2002 in Victoria, by Level of Schooling
Average days of absence 1999 2000 2001 2002 Prep-Year 6 11.36 12.02 11.72 12.65 Years 7-12 15.74 16.13 16.69 16.08 Prep-Year 12 12.86 13.66 13.56 14.26
(extracted from Victoria: Department of Education and Training, 2003: subsection: School Management Benchmarks, 2002, p.1 )
Table 3: Average Days of Absence per annum 1999-2002 in Victoria, in the Middle Years of Schooling
Average days of absence mean for Year 5 Year 6 Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10 1999 11.05 11.77 14.06 17.21 18.64 17.36 2000 11.67 12.39 14.12 17.64 19.68 18.66 2001 11.44 12.10 14.52 18.08 20.47 19.08 2002 12.53 13.03 14.82 18.27 20.54 19.01
(extracted from Victoria: Department of Education and Training, 2003: subsection: School Management Benchmarks, 2002, p.1 )
These means are calculated without reference to differing numbers of expected school attendance days at the various Year levels. When these differences are taken into account, as in the percentage attendance figures below, the situation appears rather more stable and somewhat less prone to the “incremental creep” observable above.
Table 4: Percentage Attendance per annum 1999-2002 in Victoria, in the Middle Years of Schooling DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 15 ______Percentage attendance Year 5 Year 6 Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10 1999 94.36 93.99 92.83 91.22 90.49 89.09 2000 94.08 93.71 92.83 91.04 90.01 88.08 2001 94.19 93.86 92.63 90.82 89.61 87.31 2002 93.64 93.39 92.48 90.73 89.57 87.86
(extracted from Victoria: Department of Education and Training, 2003: subsection: School Management Benchmarks, 2002, p.2 )
In line with a major focus of this paper, on the middle years of schooling, Tables 3 and 4 focus on those middle years only – the complete tables are published at the original source. Before and after those years, the situation might be summarised thus: percentage attendance has decreased very slightly for all Years Prep to 4, and at Year 11, over these 4 years. Year 12 has remained stable (lowest at 91.19 in 2001 rising again to 91.42 in 2002).
2.1.4 Tasmania
The Department of Education of Tasmania, as part of its Annual Report, issues a statement called Our Report Card. For 2002-2003, alongside achievement reports, it published some participation statistics for each of the six districts. One table (page 4) reported exclusions and exclusion rates, and numbers of expulsions. The latter dropped from four state-wide the previous year to two in 2002-3 (all male in both years). Exclusion rates fell and rose: in 2000-2001 the rate was 0.14%, the next year 0.12% and in the last report was 0.17%.
Some absentee, suspension and exemption rates were also published (Tasmania, Department of Education, 2003:1: page 2);
Table 5: Tasmania: published attendance statistics for the period 2000-2003
2000-2001 2001-2002 2002-2003 average daily 8.35% Term 2: 9.52% Term 1: 6.37% absentee rate [derived from a one Term 3: 7.27% Term 2: 9.16% week snapshot in Term 3: 7.73% mid-Term 3] suspension rate 5.62% 6.64% 6.67% exemption rate 0.37% 0.33% 0.35% 16 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______
2.1.5 Other states
One other Australian state provided summary information, with the request that its origin be kept confidential. The degree of agreement with the Victorian figures for most years (cited just above in Table 4) is significant. Absence rates for Year 12 students have climbed significantly over the period 1996 to 2003 (from 7.44% to 11.02%), but there may well be curricular or other reasons for this phenomenon.
Table 6: Percentage Attendance per annum 1999-2003 in One Australian State, in the Middle Years of Schooling
Percentage attendance Year 5 Year 6 Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10 1999 94.17 93.83 91.54 89.66 88.42 88.22 2000 94.10 93.90 91.41 89.62 88.26 87.94 2001 94.13 93.94 91.63 89.72 88.47 88.09 2002 93.76 93.52 91.27 89.58 88.37 87.89 2003 93.91 93.59 91.45 89.60 88.42 87.98
2.1.6 General comments
In summary, it would seem that this country as a whole is not much closer to using the “more sophisticated and comprehensive model of non-attendance than has been the case”, as mooted by Ainley and Lonsdale (2000:14). (Recommendation 2 offers a brief version of what such sophistication and comprehensiveness ought to reside in, and Appendix A gives a rather fuller account.)
There are undoubtedly other batches of statistics, both broad and detailed, which have not emerged from the investigation in the time available. However, it is still not possible to make conclusive statements about any gender imbalance in non-attendance behaviour, nor about the actual incidence of such acts in relation to socio-economic status or attendance at a non-government school. Such statements, as will be seen below, can be made about students in New Zealand and British schools respectively, given the nature of their data collections.
2.2 New Zealand
The New Zealand Ministry of Education regularly collects statistics school by school on what they call “stand-downs” (formal short-term removal by a principal, where the student returns after a meeting with parents) and suspensions, and aggregates these data into separate regional tables. Suspensions are arbitrated by a School Board of trustees meeting. (No summary national table could be located: region-by region statistics are available through links at New Zealand Ministry of Education, 2001.) Data are reported, separately for stand-downs and suspensions, according to the following categories: total number; DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 17 ______ age of students [5 though 19]; gender; ethnic grouping in 5 categories; reasons [see Appendix A for listing]; school type.
In addition, an attempt was made to estimate the extent of non-attendance in a one week-survey in 2002 (reported in Cosgrave, Bishop and Bennie, 2003). 86% of schools surveyed (n=2540, across all school types) returned responses for this week. On a daily basis, an overall absence rate of 8.7% and a truancy rate of 2.9% were recorded. Secondary school students were almost twice as likely as primary students to be absent, and three times as likely to be truant.
Rates across the years vary – in primary and intermediate schools the truancy rate in 2002 was the same as it had been in 1996, and slightly lower in secondary schools (though higher than it had been in 1998). The important distinction between authorised and unauthorised absences was made in data collection specifications, and a summary of the results across several years has been included in Table 8 below, alongside some international comparisons.
2.3 England
In 2002, the UK Department for Education and Science, in new Local Education Authorities’ [LEAs] Development Plans for England, placed a requirement on schools with above average unauthorised attendance rates to set targets for improvement by September 2002, to be reported in January 2003. The targets were to be determined by individual schools (in conjunction with LEA Education Welfare Service offices) whose rates exceeded 0.5% for primary schools, 1.1% for secondary schools and 2.5% for special schools. These rates are claimed to have been stable for the preceding decade.
Such above-average schools were required to monitor overall absence as well as unauthorised absence. Parents who allow or engineer absence of their children from school for no good reason were to be a particular target of the strategy overall and of school efforts. The point is made that, in compulsory years, only schools (not parents) may authorise absence, either by giving approval in advance, or by accepting the explanation offered post hoc.
Monitoring processes were left to the schools: some use computerised systems, which allow them (in one reported instance) to take a register of attendance eight times a day. The remit extends to independent schools, who must keep registers and report extended, or irregular but constant, non-attendance to LEAs. Child Protection Officers or Social Services Units follow up any extreme cases. The field of reasons for absence which a school may regard as authorised is extensive and has been incorporated into the reporting structure in Appendix A. 18 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______2.4 Scotland
The Education Department of the Scottish Executive annually publishes detailed statistics on schools attendance. Table 7 provides a brief recent summary. ‘Authorised’ and ‘unauthorised’ absences are defined in Appendix A.
It might be noted that temporary exclusions of students by the school in these years were registered as ‘unauthorised absences’, but it is intended to record them separately in the future, and to re-classify medical and dental appointments as ‘attendance’.
Table 7: Absence rates in Scottish schools, September 2000 – June 2003. (compiled from Scottish Executive: 2002; 2003.)
School type total absence rate authorised unauthorised absence rate % % absence rate % 2001-2 2002-3 2001-2 2002-3 2000-1 2001-2 2002-3 Primary 5.1 5.1 4.7 4.8 0.4 0.34 0.36 (av. 18 (1:20 due to (av. 1 half day) (0.34 due to half days) temporary truancy: exclusions) 0.02 due to temporary exclusions) Secondary 11.1 10.8 9.6 9.3 NA 1.51 1.43 (av. 36 (1:6 due to (av. 6 half-days) (1.21 due to half days) temporary truancy: exclusions) 0.22 due to temporary exclusions)
Table 8: Percentage of school time accounted for by authorised and unauthorised absences: Three countries compared, 2001-2003. (compiled from Scottish Executive: 2002; 2003 and United Kingdom Department of Education and Skills, 2000)
PRIMARY SCHOOLS SECONDARY SCHOOLS PRIMARY SCHOOLS SECONDARY SCHOOLS 2001/02 2001/02 2002/03 2002/03 Authorised Unauthorised Authorised Unauthorised Authorised Unauthorised Authorised Unauthorised England 5.4 0.5 7.6 1.1 5.4 0.4 7.2 1.1 Scotland 4.7 0.34 9.6 1.51 4.8 0.36 9.3 1.43 N.Z.* 6.1 1.2 6.2 2.7
* indicative results reported in Cosgrave, Bishop and Bennie, 2003;24 from their one week-survey in 2002 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 19 ______
2.5 Clarification of reasons for exclusion, suspension or cancellation of enrolment
These are described variously as: disobedience; misconduct; serious behaviour difficulties; conduct prejudicial to the good order and management of the school; persistently disruptive behaviour adversely affecting other students (learning; school life); refusal to participate in the program of instruction set down by the school.
However, some systems go much further in collecting information from their schools as to the detailed reasons: for example, New Zealand (see Appendix A)
2.6 Hidden non-attendance
We will never know the full story. O'Keeffe in 1993 conducted a study by administering surveys in English schools to 35,000 pupils in Year 10 and 11 who could remain anonymous. The results of the confidential questionnaire showed much higher figures than those recorded officially.
30 per cent of those who responded said they had truanted at least once in the previous half term. Nearly one in ten 15 year olds truanted at least once a week. Of the truants, all but 10 per cent had engaged in “post-registration” truancy [i.e. truancy immediately after a class roll check]. Social Exclusion Unit, 2002: chapter 1, p.1 material in[brackets added]
The SEU report comments wryly: “The study had an 83 per cent response rate: it is likely that many of those who did not respond were truanting at the time of the survey.”
2.7 Australian performance compared with other jurisdictions
In terms of official data compilations an open verdict has to be recorded in this matter. Australian results available are so piecemeal as to make most direct comparisons and aggregations impossible. One thing is fairly clear on the evidence available – sophisticated recording and analysis techniques are not common to all systems, and the techniques which are used vary widely in the degree of detail aimed at.
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) provides a cross- national perspective based on information provided by the 15-year-old students surveyed (more than 250,000) in 32 countries. In Australia 5,176 students from 231 schools provided survey data that included answers to a question asking how many times in the previous two weeks (the period was in July and August) they had missed 20 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______school, skipped classes or arrived late for school. These data were used to construct a participation score (with an overall mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 100) that could be used to compare countries.
Table 9: Selected country means and standard deviations for the PISA index of participation among 15-year-old students
Mean Standard error Standard deviation Australia 502 2.1 89 Belgium 518 1.7 94 Canada 481 1.1 104 Denmark 461 2.4 124 France 512 2.1 93 Germany 523 1.9 85 Italy 484 2.6 98 Japan 555 1.9 57 Korea 546 1.5 71 New Zealand 479 2.1 110 Poland 477 3.7 119 Sweden 489 1.5 99 United Kingdom 509 1.5 86 United States 494 3.9 100 OECD average 500 0.4 100 Source: Willms, J. D. (2003) Student engagement at school: A sense of belonging and participation, results from PISA 2000. Paris: OECD. (page 68)
Based on these data Australia is close to the average of OECD countries on the index of participation. It is a little higher than the United States, a little lower than the United Kingdom, and somewhat higher than New Zealand and Canada. On this index 15-year-old participation in Australia is rather lower than in Japan and Korea. Data for selected countries are recorded in Table 9. Willms (2003) also computed an index that reflected students’ sense of belonging based responses to a set of six questionnaire items. On this index Australian students recorded a sense of belonging that was close to the OECD average (495 compared to 500). DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 21 ______
3 INITIATIVES TO LESSEN RATES OF NON-ATTENDANCE
3.1 Methods of monitoring attendance
Schools and systems use a variety of record capture systems, some ordained by a central authority, others defined as part of school administrative policy.
period report or register; daily report or register; weekly report or register; student-kept journals; computerised record-keeping.
However, some schools go much further than others in collecting information about the whereabouts of their students: for example, an English school cited in Social Exclusion Unit (2000) is reported to have its teachers capture whole school attendance data for every period (by use of a Palm pilot or similar device), feeding the information to the school’s central IT unit. In another trial, messages announcing truancy (or non-attendance) will be sent to parents’ pagers. New Zealand is proposing to develop “a new electronic data system to track students”, though the extent of the proposal is not yet clear (New Zealand Ministry of Education Gazette, 20 November 2003). Several Australian States have such strategies in place.
3.2 What is known to work in lessening truancy rates
There is a hunger for shared learning and collective knowledge, identification of best practice, and a recognition of the need to document outcomes, what works, [what are] successes. DSF (2003).
Without any claim to being exhaustive, here is a list of those school and community factors which are commonly cited as conducive to support for young people at risk (e.g. Withers and Russell, 2001: Bourke, Rigby and Burden, 2000; Wehlage and Rutter, 1986).
whole school commitment to effort in reducing absenteeism and suspensions, involving not only the whole school community, but also its surrounding community; provision of options for any suspended students, allowing their learning to proceed; changing a school climate to emphasise cooperation and to encourage active learning, to take place in and out of the classroom; cultural inclusiveness and sensitivity to learning styles, languages and traditions amongst minority ethnic groups; 22 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______ smaller schools where values and expectations are shared and clear, both in policies and their enactment; a thorough system of pastoral care and counselling, which reaches parents as well as students; dynamic classrooms led rather than ruled by teachers; classrooms which respond flexibly to students’ stated or perceived needs, rather than a rigid, qualifications-driven process; strengthening teachers’ skills with in-service education which enables them to function more professionally for a wider range of student abilities and interests.
3.3 Australia
3.3.1 Trends in Policy Responses
Policy responses around the Australian state ministries seem to be of two main broad kinds: one we might call punitive, the other curricular.
In the first, schools may be required to make greater efforts at surveillance of the whereabouts of their students, effect faster contact with parents of truants (for example, through SMS or e-mails), and with threats of legal action offered to combat persistent non-attendance.
In the second, the aim is to change the curricular offerings and ethos of schools so that they become more attractive places to students. There is often a strong welfare orientation attached, with support being sought from other community and government agencies.
These two kinds are not mutually exclusive responses. For example, professional development programs sponsored by Departments and other school-based activities, notable for their strong emphasis on parent involvement, and changes to curriculum, school policies and organisation, and school ethos are often seen to be essential concomitants of the more regulatory or punitive attempts to diminish levels of unauthorised attendance.
Each kind is often supported as well by various ministry-promulgated policy documents, dealing with issues such as racism, bullying, and harassment which might have an impact on the degree to which a student remains committed to school and learning.
3.3.2 Victoria
As a postscript to providing its attendance figures, the Victorian Department of Education and Training also passed on information about one large rural region, Gippsland, which had identified student attendance as an important issue at one of its primary schools, and had instituted steps to redress attendance declines by means of four strategies: DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 23 ______ to charter a school bus to transport disadvantaged students from a housing estate to school; to implement a “walking bus” program for other sectors of the school cohort; to implement a breakfast program; to conduct a professional development program called “Poverty and School Solutions”.
This became part of an overall regional initiative to make “Attendance” a major focus in 2004. It is based on a “high profiling” of the key message that the attendance issue is not exclusively owned by schools and that the community has a large and important part to play. Stronger links were expected to be forged between schools, the communities and inter-community agencies such as: police; Koori groups; regional youth organisations; school-focussed youth services; the regional local government network; and major shopping centres.
However, school accountability for collection of data and action to redress weak or poor attendance was made very clear. The whole regional strategy is to be multi- layered using: aggregation and monitoring by the regional office of all schools’ attendance data, including trend data; attendance support kits; an Attendance Awareness week (using the slogan: “It’s Not OK to Be Away”); a media campaign; a designated Framework for bringing about whole-school improvement in attendance, with encouragement and expectation of success; intensive work with school leadership.
The Gippsland regional experience and its strategies also became the subject of a newspaper cover story article (The Age, Melbourne, 2004).
One other Victorian region reported that the number of actual expulsions by schools had been cut by one-third between 2001 and 2003 (from 15 to 10), but the causes of this success were not clear.
Professional development programs sponsored by the Department and other school- based activities reviewed are notable for their strong emphasis on parent involvement, beyond merely being subjects for counselling when things go wrong. 24 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______
3.3.3 South Australia
The Department of Education and Children’s Services (DECS) in South Australia has, for the last several years, aimed at full implementation of what is called its Attendance Improvement Package. A combination of District Support Services student attendance counsellors, the South Australian Police, Family and Youth Services and the Department’s Education Department School Administration System (EDSAS) electronic data capture help schools, families and students to manage issues relating to poor school attendance.
The attendance counsellors are available to: provide a counselling and consulting service; support schools in monitoring and improving school attendance; work with identified students and their parents/caregivers identify reasons for non-attendance liaise with appropriate community agencies inform parents/caregivers of their legal responsibilities in relation to attendance and the possible implications of non-compliance. DECS, n.d., section 8.1
The electronic data capture of attendance records is substantial, and organised according to a large number of codes. These represent a wide range of categories of authorised and unauthorised non-attendance (detailed in DECS, n.d., sections 9.1- 9.15).
The involvement of the police force is based on a truancy schedule, in turn based on the 1972 Education Act, Police General Orders relating to truants, a Ministerial Taskforce on Absenteeism (established in 2002), and the DECS Attendance Improvement Plan. The package is called Managing Truancy Together (summarised in South Australia Police, 2004). The Taskforce set Terms of Reference which include: mapping current attendance patterns; analysing profiles of chronically absent students; collaboration between agencies; school action plans as part of student support policies; student passes; street sweeps and ‘hot-spot’ monitoring by police; targeting schools in zones of high absenteeism. adapted from Department of Education and Children’s Services, 2002:1 with slight rewording
A Departmental source also kindly provided the following commentary on the status quo:
Since the change in the Education Act in South Australia 2003, two major markers have been developed to monitor student attendance. The first has been the requirement from the Chief Executive in February 2003 that every school, either individually or in District clusters, would develop an attendance improvement plan and lodge it with the District Superintendent whose team had the front-line responsibility for monitoring both the implementation and outcomes within the DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 25 ______context of each school's Annual Report for 2003. So, each school and preschool in the public system has developed its baseline data and its strategy for improvement and reports on the process and outcome(s) each year. The Quality Improvement and Effectiveness Unit within the Office of Learning and Service Delivery has the responsibility of analysing and reporting on the aggregated data.
The second is the area of exemption, made relevant by clauses in the Act which enable students under the age of 16 to apply for exemption under certain, defined circumstances. … The Executive Director of Schools and Children's Services and/or either of his Directors has the delegated authority to grant exemptions from attendance when the time sought is greater than four school weeks. These exemptions cover holidays, especially overseas trips, apprenticeships or traineeships where employment and training are involved, for full-time TAFE enrolment or for full-time employment. The school has to monitor the status of the exempted person until he or she turns 16 because if their employment is terminated or becomes less than full-time, then they are required to return to full-time study. Equally, they cannot be exempted for part-time only TAFE courses. Private communication, 2004
As a postscript to this, the South Australian government budget released in May 2004 announced an allocation of $2.4 million to create a 'data warehouse' about student achievement, retention, absenteeism and enrolments.
3.3.4 Queensland
A monitoring regime to combat truancy was announced in October 2003, which includes computer software than “can send a text message to parents of students who are absent without reason”. This was supported by a statement of why and how schools should manage behaviour (including absences) in what the title calls “a supportive school environment” (Queensland, Department of Education, 2004).
The stated policy aims of this document are clear and broad:
Education Queensland is committed to providing school environments which maximise the educational opportunities for all through: a quality practices in the areas of curriculum, interpersonal relationships and school organisation; b the employment of fair and just practices which comply with relevant legislation; and c the consideration of and use of suspension and exclusion procedures only when all other approaches have been exhausted. Queensland, Department of Education, 2004:2
These are supported by other statement of departmental accountability such as catering for the diverse needs of all students, professional support for teachers, and “providing a supportive school environment which is characterised by non-violent, non-coercive and non-discriminatory practices” (Queensland, Department of Education, 2004:2). Further sections clearly link the program to equity and social justice issues, inclusiveness, community relationships and accountability, and monitoring and review. 26 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______
3.3.5 Western Australia
In February 2004, the Education and Training Minister announced what the press release referred to as a “crackdown” – in the title of the release the focus was on “bad behaviour”, in the text the accent was more specifically on improving student attendance as well as behaviour. The key innovation is a State-wide “student leave pass” to standardise a system whereby police and school attendance officers can easily identify a student and confirm his or her permission to be absent from school. Alongside this, there is to be an expanded Behaviour Management and Discipline Strategy (trialled earlier) attracting a total financial commitment of $53.5 million.
WHAT WORKS IN TACKLING TRUANCY?
The most effective anti-truancy measure is to act quickly and consistently, and always to contact parents immediately children are absent. This shows that the school does not tolerate truancy and means that parents can't ignore it either. With measures of this kind, attendance rates rise quickly by 5 to 10 per cent. Home-school agreements also help to make parents take their responsibilities seriously.
The other ingredients of effective approaches are: making a truancy crackdown an issue for the whole school - all children, all teachers, parents, ancillary staff and the local community. This can be extended to 'truancy watch' schemes, involving the police, local businesses and others;
unambiguous discipline policies, applied consistently to stamp out bullying and negative peer pressures;
computerised registration so schools can identify patterns and possible causes, for example particular groups of children who are truanting or particular lessons that are being missed;
dealing early with children's literacy and numeracy problems so they catch up academically, and offering an alternative curriculum for those unlikely to achieve at GCSE;
extra-curricular activities - such as after-school clubs, study support, vocational learning, work experience and education-business-community links - have also been shown to motivate children at risk of becoming disaffected.
Figure 1: Extract No 1 from the Social Exclusion Unit’s report Truancy and School Exclusion SEU, 2000: chapter 1, p.3 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 27 ______
SOME EXAMPLES OF THESE APPROACHES IN PRACTICE
Stoke-on-Trent: Police and the Local Education Authority launched a scheme to tackle crime and truancy in the town centre shopping malls. A strategy was put in place which shopkeepers were committed to: any child of school age found in a shop during school hours was challenged by shopkeepers and would not be served;
there were joint patrols of police and education staff, who also challenged children whether they were with adults or alone;
education staff told shopkeepers when schools were off on holiday or on staff training days. The outcome was a marked reduction in both the number of children in the shopping malls and in truancy. There was also a cut of a third in crimes previously attributed to truanting pupils. The award-winning scheme has now been replicated in some 70 town centres across the country.
Bolton: Smithills Comprehensive and the Borough Council have undertaken a six-week trial project combining electronic registration (which allows six whole school registrations a day) and electronic pagers for parents of pupils who truant. Parents are contacted the moment the school knows the child is missing and are expected to follow this up immediately. Attendance has improved by between 19 and 23 per cent and internal (post- registration) truancy has been virtually eliminated: children now know they will be caught out.
Compact Plus for Jobs: A partnership project in the West Midlands, designed to tackle the school to work transition by improving the motivation and achievement of 'at risk' final year students through curriculum flexibility. An important element of the design was the use of project staff not very different in age from the students and who seemed to have more success in engaging disaffected young people. These project staff adopted an advisor- counsellor role.
Analysis of the first year of the project demonstrated: attendance improved at a time when it typically starts to fall off into apathy and disaffection. (Two students achieved 100 per cent attendance.);
94 per cent of students obtained or exceeded predicted grades;
better career planning and outcome - 33 per cent obtained employment rather than the 19 per cent predicted.
Figure 2: Extract No 2 from the Social Exclusion Unit’s report Truancy and School Exclusion SEU, 2000: chapter 1, pp.3-4 28 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______
3.4 The United Kingdom
The Cabinet Office in the United Kingdom aimed at something more specific than the list of dot-points cited in 3.2 above. It gave the Social Exclusion Unit (SEU) a remit to report to the Prime Minister on how to: make a step-change in the scale of truancy and exclusions from school, and to find better solutions for those who have been excluded. Social Exclusion Unit (2002).
In its report, the SEU cited the approaches it could verify as having been successful in both general terms and in specific instances. These are reported in Figure 1 below. While the case studies (Figure 2) apply to young people in senior secondary school, the principles can be seen to be applicable to children in lower age groups.
The Social Exclusion Unit’s work was part of a wider British program, begun in 2000, with the aim of reducing non-attendance and improving student achievement generally:
The Government has set itself the target to reduce unauthorised absence by one third by the year 2002. Local Education Authorities have been required to reflect this national goal in local targets to be included in their Education Development Plans. Funding has been made available through the Social Inclusion: Pupil Support Grant (Standards Fund) worth in excess of £500m over three years. This provides practical help to schools and Local Education Authorities in reducing levels of unauthorised absence by supporting locally devised projects. The police have also been given new powers to pick up truants found in public places and return them to school.
In October this year, the Department, together with the Home Office, announced a renewed crackdown on truancy with more help for schools backed by increased funding. Schools which succeed in cutting truancy, particularly in challenging circumstances, will have the chance to win a 'Truancy Buster'' award. The other key elements of the new drive to stamp out truancy include: A co-ordinated programme of truancy sweeps; Higher penalties for parents convicted of school attendance offences and tougher rules to ensure that parents of persistent truancy attend court; Extra money to tackle poor behaviour, with truancy the top priority; Extra Learning mentors in Excellence in Cities areas; and Setting of new targets for schools with above average truancy records. United Kingdom Department of Education and Skills, 2000: 1
3.5 New Zealand
The Ministry of Education began a program in 1999 called the Suspension Reduction Initiative [SRI] aimed particularly at lessening suspension rates among Maori students. In 2001, Maori students made up nearly half of all suspensions, despite being 20% of the school population. The initiative (with an annual budget of $2.1 million) involves 86 secondary schools, in 18 clusters. They share best practice in managing student behaviour, and focuses on getting schools and local communities to work better to meet the needs of students at risk. Areas or regions which do not take part in the initiative show no reduction in suspensions, but in participating schools the DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 29 ______rates of stand-downs (down slightly), suspensions (down markedly, 6%), exclusions and expulsions have reduced. Schools are required to analyse their attendance data and develop an individual plan for doing something to lessen it. A Ministry spokesman remarked that “it [SRI] reinforces the view that suspension is a manageable issue which we can make progress on.” (New Zealand Ministry of Education Gazette, 6 May 2002.)
A year later, the results were even clearer. Rates of Maori suspensions in schools which opted into the program dropped from 76 per 1000 in 2000 to 48 per 1000 in 2002: “We are seeing improved school practice in behaviour management, and a focus on support for students with difficulties.” (New Zealand Ministry of Education Gazette, 21 April 2003.)
In 2002, the Ministry conducted a large-scale survey of attendance and absence (Cosgrave, Bishop and Bennie, 2003), which although dipping into school registers and records only for one nominated week, nevertheless came up with data which reveals the extent of, and some varied statistical detail about, the issues. Late in 2003, the Ministry announced proposals (New Zealand Ministry of Education, 2003c) to spend $NZ8.6 million over four years on “existing and new initiatives to reduce the level of truancy.” The new initiatives are to build on the work of SRI by: setting targets to reduce truancy; reduce early leaving exemptions; and getting alienated students back into school.
As noted above, among the measures proposed are a new electronic data system to track students, and a project to enhance schools’ software so they can notify parents automatically by email or text messages when their child is absent.
Alongside the more formal, administrative and surveillance aspects of SRI and related activities lies an initiative for improving school engagement and performance levels, designed particularly with Maori students in mind, but believed to have the capacity to enable all students to learn more, and to make the experience of teaching more satisfying for teachers (New Zealand Ministry of Education, 2003a). Administered by video, supported by in-service education, and called Te Mana Ki Te Taumata (“get there with learning”), the program reveals best practice in teaching Maori students, especially focussing on teaching which values youth opinions and achievements, and fulfils their need to feel valued. In the Ministry’s Annual Report, some success is claimed:
the Te Mana communications program seems to be causing a shift in Maori young people’s attitude to education. There has been a notable increase in the number of rangatahi [Maori young people] who believed that a good education was linked to good teachers (from1 to 14% of respondents in the course of a year) … the proportion of Maori parents surveyed who approached teachers for information on their young peoples’ education rose from 49 to 67 percent in the course of a year. New Zealand Ministry of Education, 2002b: Executive summary, pp.2-3. 30 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______4 DISCUSSION
4.1 Diversity and flexibility of curriculum provision in general
There is a general awareness that ‘in-school’ or ‘school-based’ factors are a necessary focus when considering the issues which surround non-attendance, and most programs for reduction will take them into account. Whether this represents a growing awareness, or whether the focus has always been clear, is not certain – one suspects the former. It is particularly the case, for example, in commentaries about improving the attendance rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (e.g. Bourke, Rigby and Burden, 2000). Certain themes become clear – notably the need for diversity and flexibility.
Diversity and/or flexibility will often mean initiatives to replace centralised control over curricula with a wide range of locally-designed alternative programs developed on, or according to, ‘real choice’ or ‘last chance’ models. Three quotations from a recent paper reviewing “best practice principles” (Dusseldorp Skills Forum, 2003) might set the scene:
1. More student decision-making: “responding to individuals rather than a system driven by a set of demands.” 2. “a connection with and engagement by young people, and tapping into what motivates them … they take much more responsibility for their own learning and behaviour.” 3. “ the diversity … embraces both an integrated approach within the mainstream and approaches which challenge mainstream practice.”
To these can be added, from various other sources (including Wehlage and Rutter, 1986; Withers and Russell, 2001: Oerlemans and Jenkins, 1998): the teacher acting as facilitator rather than dominant; the curriculum less crowded or ‘packed’; an inclusive program, available to everyone, not just those deemed to be ‘problems’ curricular offerings to be less rigid and determined from outside – decentralisation and local autonomy; a school experience more related to the worlds of students lived outside school (avoiding the disjunction between home and school); curriculum with a “hands-on”/production focus; the school establishing the legitimacy and relevance of part-time work; making sure there are multiple points of attachment to school (sport, volunteering, work); family, work, health, developmental, sexual issues to be incorporated into school-based learning, not ignored or dismissed as irrelevant; connections possible and promoted with wide range of community service providers (health; law; recreation; employment; welfare agencies, etc). DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 31 ______This last point has been taken up by an increasing number of schools which operate on, or on something similar to, “full-service school” principles. (For a full discussion of the “full-service school” concept, see Withers and Russell, 2001: chapter 6.)
4.2 The Middle Years of Schooling
Two related current educational developments might be mentioned in this connection. One is a fairly widespread move across Australia to re-conceptualise curriculum provision, often radically (for example, Victoria in 2004). The other is (and has been for some years; for example, in South Australia for over a decade, Victoria more recently) an impetus to investigate and reform educational provision particularly for what are called “the middle years of schooling”. Evaluations of these changes should, even must, occur, and will need to focus to some extent on the degree of success such changes have in enhancing the engagement of children to their learning. Attendance statistics, rigorously kept, will be vital evidence for these evaluations. The degree to which schools are permitted to administer their curricular offerings independently, devise satisfactory variant to suit local purposes and conditions, and their individual successes at doing so, will likewise be important targets for investigation. Promotion of schools as supportive and caring environments is a constant in all such policy initiatives, but more evidence of ‘what works’ in particular, and what, if generalised, might work elsewhere to improve engagement and increase participation (not merely hold the status quo) is needed quite urgently.
What trend data can be inferred from just about all the statistical records kept over many years, in many countries, shows that somewhere in the middle years of schooling is the time when absences and suspensions start to increase. New risk factors begin to emerge, puberty overcomes most students, and the impetus to stay away from school rises. Whether boys outnumber girls, at precisely what age the graph of absence starts to steepen, and how steeply it rises, varies from one locality to another. If allowed to continue without correction or attention, the rate of unauthorised absence can have severe short- and long-term consequences. In the matter of retention and enhancement of basic skills such as literacy and numeracy, the issue is particularly poignant.
It is possible to speculate that amongst certain at-risk sections of the school population in this country, the skills acquired during primary school acquisition of literacy can actually decay. One reason for this speculation lies in the common emergence of a small sub-set of “non-readers” in, say, Year 10 classrooms, who claim to have, or can show, no more than minimal ability in literacy. However, it may be not that they have never learned to read – one has to have more faith in the professional probity of primary school teachers than that view suggests – but rather that they no longer can. Excessive time out of school in the middle years may well exacerbate the ‘decay’ process. Many learners of foreign languages can testify to the speed at which hard-won abilities to read, speak and write those languages decline when the language is no longer used, or the skills are not practised. Time spent in the shopping mall is hardly conducive to language maintenance, let alone enhancement of 32 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______skills in reading or writing at the standard necessary for acceptable later school performance or adult life. (The recently-announced (May 2004) Commonwealth Government literacy “package” for the middle years may well be of strategic importance and value if the speculation just described has any validity.)
4.3 More rigorous record-keeping and publicity
An initiative to increase, in scope and rigour, the collection of data about student non- attendance by schools, and regular aggregation and publication by relevant systems and authorities, would seem as necessary as it was in 1996 when the problems of truancy and exclusion were seen to require ‘urgent remedial action’ (House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training, 1996:ix). For the action to be thoughtfully conceived and properly co-ordinated, such information or data should ideally have at least the following characteristics:
distinguish between authorised and unauthorised absence; detail the categories of authorised and unauthorised absence; distinguish between school-ordained exclusions or suspensions (if categorised as “unauthorised”) and truant acts; establish categories detailing the reasons for school-ordained exclusions; track school-leavers more precisely, whether at transition from institutions at one educational level to another, by regular transfer or by personal volition; track school entry, particularly distinguishing immigrant students who will not have figures in recent census-taking: use a recording and reporting framework agreed by and common to all government systems; make collection of such data be incumbent on non-government schools and systems, as part of funding agreements with government; convey as a matter of course, at transition from primary to secondary schooling, records of attendance and alerts about individuals’ established or developing patterns of poor attendance.
Bourke, Rigby and Burden (2000:2) comment on the inconsistencies and lack of evidence with particular regard to the attendance performance on Indigenous students. However, their Recommendation 2 can be generalised to the whole school population: it is in effect another fuller version of what might be done, similar to but not identical with the nine dot-points above.
4.4 Fine lines
The proponents of various regimes for investigating and combating non-attendance have mounted a number of different strategies, which looked at broadly, might be seen as defining a fine line between legitimate and non-legitimate practice. DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 33 ______
Three which attract some attention in both their negative and positive aspects are: computer-assisted monitoring which in some instances comes close to intensive surveillance which may well be in breach of privacy legislation; suspensions by schools (sometimes unmoderated by parents and without external referents such as Truancy Boards) which some feel place children in circumstances and environments or locales which are likely to increase the chance of risk factors being exacerbated; the assignment of young people to “alternative learning” sites and programs which, unless carefully managed, can set up a ghetto effect gathering like-minded students with similar histories, and (in some views) further marginalise the young people concerned.
In jurisdictions where such events occur, there would seem to be a need for policy clarification and publicity if none has occurred, to justify what, it must be recognised, are usually well-intentioned efforts to keep students on task in their schools. Early return to mainstream schooling, and learning interventions with a strong cognitive- behavioural emphasis, have their proponents (Wheatley and Spillane, 2001:28-30).
The emphasis (or re-emphasis) on cognitive development as an essential ingredient in programs to increase engagement, and hence attendance, draws some important support from a recent evaluation of one such program administered in schools educating Indigenous students (Cresswell, Underwood and Withers: 2002). A literacy development strategy, devised by scholars at the University of Canberra and generally known as “Scaffolding Literacy”, was found to have significant impact on those who were given the program, even in unpromising social or educational settings which otherwise would have deterred them from attending school and learning at all. The achievement of greater reading and writing competence had a marked effect on attendance patterns, self-esteem, and other factors generally regarded as contributing to school engagement and resilience to risk factors.
4.5 Overseas students
It is interesting in the context of this paper to reflect briefly on the divergence between the attitudes to education amongst overseas immigrant families from the Asian area, particularly those of Chinese origin, and those prevailing amongst sectors of Australian mainstream society (particularly those in reduced socioeconomic circumstances). Truancy amongst the former group would usually be regarded as a ‘family crime’, rarely condoned and often punished.
However, somewhat less speculatively, the increasing presence in metropolitan schools (State and independent) of fee-paying overseas students needs to be captured statistically, and their numbers distinguished for record-keeping. Calculations based on comparisons of total numbers enrolled and total expected population as revealed by census-taking should leave such recent arrivals out of account, so that we do not 34 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______get a false impression of how many students who should be attending in the compulsory years are actually missing from schools.
4.6 An opportunity to fashion powerful strategies for combating non- attendance
The fabric of educational experience, and the language used to describe various elements within it, have changed radically over the last several decades. Three relatively recent terms or concepts which seem relevant to any debate about what to do to improve attendance (and retention) might be Lifelong Learning, Key Competencies, and Workplace Education.
When schools and systems look around for strategies on which they might base their efforts to combat non-attendance, elements of each of those three concepts might sharpen the focus on maintaining and enhancing student engagement in learning. While workplace education might seem to have little relevance to students at or below the middle years of schooling, nevertheless the emphasis on active off-site learning can be translated into activities appropriate to their levels. Lifelong Learning, as presently understood (see Figures 3 and 4), and Key Competencies (see Figure 5) have direct relevance to all. DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 35 ______
EVERYONE MUST BE LEARNING SOMETHING
The material in this box emerged in a much earlier context than current views of Lifelong Learning: it derives from the writings of an American penal educator, Mary B. Harris, who was born in 1878 and died in the middle years of last century. The principles of Lifelong Learning are not novelties in the educational world. One of the outstanding traits of delinquent children is their resignation to failure … many of the same elements in delinquent children are in the adult offender: a feeling of inferiority, lack of preparation for earning a living, and acceptance of failure, lack of ambition and avoidance of stimulation. … We found that schools had put too great a stress on the content of the subject studied, and not enough on achievement. …. we made it the rule of our school that everyone must be put to doing or learning something, no matter how trifling it might be. Our pupils were to have the thrill which comes from success and progress. * * * * No-one is allowed to fail … Reformation, like education, is a journey, not a destination, and requires providing inmates with: goals; incentives; information; morale boosts; supportive atmosphere; self-respect; and; sound reasons for positive attitudinal changes to occur. * * * * Our goal is to produce self directed learners, individuals who are: confident in themselves; confident in their ability to adapt to new situations; persons who want to be valued; persons who want their talents utilised; persons who want to share with and in society.
Figure 3: “Everyone must be learning something” [from Bryce and Withers, 2003:18] 36 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______
HOW FAR IS THE SCHOOL ON THE JOURNEY TO LIFELONG LEARNING? How far has the school’s program moved from the column on the left to the column on the right?
Ownership of the Do students set their own learning goals? As far as possible need to learn and its ownership of the Are students given explicit assistance in planning and content is with the need to learn and its setting goals? teacher. content is given to individuals. Education is Is there fluidity between year levels? Learning is lifelong compartmentalised in concept and Are students helped to develop ‘helicopter vision’ – to according to age and content, there are make links between different curriculum areas? subject. links vertically and Is there a Learning Centre or Resources Centre that is horizontally between the hub of learning in the school? age groups. Is there explicit help to acquire generic skills – especially information literacy skills? Learning is about Are students given adequate time for reflection? Learning is about what to think. how to think. Are students helped to reflect by aids such as a diary, which is regularly discussed with a mentor? Are students’ ideas rigorously challenged? To what extent is learning seen as a form of problem- solving? Teachers are Do teachers feel valued and supported? Teachers are dispensers of mentors and models knowledge. Are innovations valued and celebrated? of lifelong learning. Do teachers work collaboratively? Is there a system of mentoring? Failures are separated To what extent can it be said that all students in the Emphasis is on from successes. school have positive pictures of themselves as learners? progress and encouragement of Are students grouped according to ability? Are some further learning. made to feel that they are ‘failures’? Do assessment exercises take account of different styles of learning? Is most assessment formative rather than summative? How much self-assessment takes place? Are students able to discuss their progress with a mentor?
Is it safe for students to take risks/ to expose lack of knowledge. Learning is a difficult Is there discussion about different styles of learning? Learning is fun, chore and is about Are students aware of their styles of learning? participative and received wisdom. involving. To what extent are classrooms communities of enquiry? Are there opportunities to celebrate learning? Is it fun to learn in the school?
Figure 4: Schools on the Road to Lifelong Learning [adapted from Bryce and Withers, 2003: 26-27] UK CORE SKILLS US SCANS NZ AUSTRALIA CRITICAL CROSS FIELD CANADA communication WORKPLACE KNOW- ESSENTIAL SKILLS KEY COMPETENCIES OUTCOMES' EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS personal skills HOW SOUTH AFRICA 1995 PROFILE (1992) numeracy 3 foundation skills: communication collecting, analysing and information technology basic skills (reading etc) numeracy organising ideas and Identify and solve Fundamental Skills problem solving thinking skills information (identify, information problems in ways which Communicate competence in modern personal qualities organise, etc) communicating ideas and display that responsible Manage information language 5 competencies: problem solving information decisions using critical and Use number resources (time self management & planning and organising creative thinking have been Think & solve problems QCA Key skills allocation etc) competitive activities made. Britain 1998 interpersonal social & co-operative working with others and Work effectively with Personal & management Communication information (acquires & physical (personal fitness in teams others as a member of a team, skills Taking part in discussions evaluates info etc) etc) using mathematical ideas group, organisation, Demonstrate positive and making presentations systems (understands work & study (work and techniques community. attitudes & behaviours Reading and responding to systems etc) independently & in solving problems Organise and manage Be responsible written material technology groups etc) using technology oneself and one's activities Be adaptable Producing written material [cultural understanding] responsibly and effectively. Learn continuously Information technology National Committee of Collect, analyse, Work safely Preparing information Inquiry into Higher The VCAA Student Profile The Finn Areas of organise and critically evaluate Processing and presenting Education of UK of Work-related Capabilities Competence information. Teamwork skills information (The Dearing Report) Language and Communicate effectively Work with others Reviewing the use of Program outcomes Initiative Communication using visual, mathematical Participate in projects & information technology •the knowledge and Self-management Mathematics and/or language skills in the tasks Application of Number understanding that a student Cooperative work Cultural Understanding modes of oral or written presentation. Collecting and recording will be expected to have upon Adaptability Scientific and data Use science and completion; Reflection/ Technological Understanding OECD Working with data •key skills: communication, technology effectively and Evaluation Personal and Key Competencies Presenting findings numeracy, the use of critically, showing Communication Interpersonal Working with Others information technology and responsibility towards the Problem Solving Acting autonomously and Planning activities learning how to learn; environment and others. reflectively Working towards identified •cognitive skills, such as an Demonstrate an Using tools interactively targets understanding of understanding of the world as Joining and functioning in Improving Own Learning methodologies or ability in a set of related systems by heterogeneous groups & performance critical analysis; recognising that problem Setting targets and action •subject specific skills, such as solving contexts do not exist in planning laboratory skills isolation Following plan to meet target Problem Solving
Figure 5: International Approaches to the Idea of Key Competencies 38 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______
[McCurry, 2002:3] DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 39 ______
1. Outcomes for the individual and community 11. Planning and evaluation The outcomes sought are the prevention of emergence The design of programs for prevention and intervention or escalation of problem behaviours in the individual, should include a clear statement of outcomes-based the reduction in severity and diversity of those goals, a specification of how each outcome is to be behaviours, and the strengthening of resilience, in order measured validly and reliably, and a plan for the regular to enable the individual to achieve a more satisfying and long-term evaluation of the extent to which goals and responsible life, in both the present and the future, have been met. simultaneously bringing present and future benefits to the community. 12. Participation The young person and the parents/carers should 2. Early prevention participate in the planning, management and evaluation Prevention is most effective if it occurs early in the of the programs provided. child’s life and prior to the emergence of problem behaviours; at a later stage prevention aims to stop the 13. Quality of staff escalation of problems. The quality of staff (leaders, professional staff, ancillary staff) is fundamental to the integrity of program 3. Focus on comprehensive set of risk factors delivery and success of the program. Programs should focus on a comprehensive set of risk factors rather than on specific problem behaviours. 14. High expectations In implementing programs, staff should hold high 4. Increasing resilience expectations of young people, build on their strengths, Increasing resilience through the strengthening of recognise and celebrate successes, and enhance their protective factors, such as family and school motivation at all times. connectedness, reduces the individual’s vulnerability to risk factors. 15. Learning experiences of high risk youth Individualised planning for the education of high risk 5. Change in multiple contexts young people should include, but not be confined to, Risk factors should be addressed in all the main social strong components developing literacy levels, personal units influencing the individual (family, school, peer and social knowledge and skills, social cognitive group, community), thereby changing the environment capacities, vocational skills and aspirations, and in order to enhance positive development in the physical and recreational abilities, through participative individual. and interactive learning experiences both on and off campus. 6. Multiple component strategy Multiple component strategies are necessary in 16. Monitoring learning progress prevention and intervention, since no single component The learning progress of each young person should be is effective when it is used independently of others. monitored (through staff as well as self-assessment) and recorded closely and systematically, so accurate, 7. Integrated, collaborative service detailed knowledge of the individual’s progress is The provision of a seamless, non-fragmented service available to be used as a basis for on-going planning, through the collaboration of professionals in education, teaching and decision-making. health, family and welfare services, centred on schools and owned by local communities, reduces risk levels 17. Accountability and enhances resilience for children and young people. Publicly funded schools and programs must demonstrate their accountability for achievement of 8. Early identification of individuals at risk outcomes and use of resources to parents/carers, the Early identification of those at risk, through close community, the students/young people and the monitoring of children and young people from the years government. before schooling onward, is essential. 18. Duration 9. Individualisation The duration of programs should be sufficient to Each young person, having a unique set of needs and achieve effect but insufficient to produce dependence. capacities, and being exposed to a unique combination of risk factors, requires individualised instruction and, if 19. Continuity of programs at risk, individualised pathway planning. Multiple follow-up prevention programs are needed over the time of young people’s development and 10. Positive, supportive, responsive culture schooling, in contrast to the use of the one-shot Schools and related settings engaged in prevention and approach, if prevention is to be effective. intervention should establish a positive, supportive, responsive culture in which young people feel safe, 20. Resourcing accepted and valued, receive respect, are given the A program must be resourced adequately in order to be opportunity to work co-operatively with others, and implemented with integrity and therefore effective. have a clear set of norms agreed to by students, staff and parents. 40 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______Figure 6: Principles for Programs of Prevention and Intervention for At-risk Young People [Withers and Russell, 2001:3]
5 RECOMMENDATIONS
Recommendation 1
It is recommended that, in the clarification and formulation of policies aimed at limiting or decreasing non-attendance, whatever measures are chosen to track students are accompanied by school initiatives of a more general kind, aimed at improving the quality of school life and learning conditions for those individuals or groups most at risk of disengagement and truancy. Such initiatives should be the subject of on-going evaluation, and successful strategies shared amongst the educational community.
Recommendation 2
In 2001 MCEETYA established its Performance Measurement and Reporting Taskforce with specific terms of reference (see Appendix D). Intimately related to many of these terms is the question of school attendance which is a contributing factor to both improvement of performance and overall a fuller approach to achieving the National Goals of Schooling. Collection, interpretation and reporting of a wide range of school attendance data might reasonably be added to these terms of reference. Alongside apparent retention rates and participation rates annually collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics as part of its National Schools Statistics Collection (ABS Index 4221.0), such data would form an important addition to publicly available data on the health of the school system.
Recommendation 3
As a minimum, presentation and publication of the data should clearly: distinguish between authorised and unauthorised non-attendance; distinguish between long and short suspensions, exclusions and cancellations; itemise reasons for suspensions and exclusions; indicate rises and falls in proportions from calendar year to year; indicate rises and falls in proportions from one Year of schooling to another; distinguish the existence or otherwise of appeal mechanisms in cases of expulsions.
Recommendation 4
The collection should incorporate the full range of such data from all schools (including Independent and Catholic schools) which are in receipt of public funds.
Recommendation 5
Australian education authorities might also with profit consider the range of attendance data and their public availability as collected and published by the New DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 41 ______Zealand Ministry of Education as a model for improving their methods if this is needed. In other respects as well, educational practice in New Zealand might provide a model for consideration by Australian authorities (for example, New Zealand Ministry of Education, 2002a; 2002b; 2003a; 2003b). They appear to have established and indicated clearly their expected relative balance of responsibilities between parents, schools and systems, and promoted effective programs to counteract disengagement and low participation of its various socioeconomic and ethnic school sub-populations. 42 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______
REFERENCES AND WORKS CONSULTED
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Ainley, J. and Lonsdale, M. (2000). Non-attendance at School. in Footprints to the Future, Report of the Prime Minister’s Youth Pathways Taskforce, Vol. 2 Appendices, pp. 39-52.
Bryce, J. and Withers, G. (2003). Engaging Secondary School Students in Lifelong Learning. Melbourne: ACER.
Bourke, C., Rigby, K. and Burden, J. (2000). Better Practice In School Attendance: Improving the school attendance of indigenous students. Canberra: DETYA. Available at: http://www.detya.gov.au/schools/Publications/2000/Attend_Synth.pdf
Buckingham, J. (2003). Schools in the Spotlight: School performance reporting and public accountability. Sydney: The Centre for Independent Studies (Policy Monograph 59).
Cosgrave, R., Bishop, F. and Bennie, N. (2003). Attendance and Absence in New Zealand Schools. Wellington: New Zealand Ministry of Education Research Division. Available on line at http://www.minedu.govt.nz/index.cfm? layout=document&documentid=8788&data=l#P56_8018
Cresswell, J., Underwood, C. & Withers, G. (2002). Evaluation of the University of Canberra Programme for Advanced Literacy Development Scaffolding Literacy with Indigenous Children in School. Canberra: DEST: to be available on the DEST website shortly.
Department of Education and Children’s Services [DECS]. (n.d.) Attendance Improvement Package. Adelaide, South Australia. Available at: http://www.decs.sa.gov.au/speced2/files/links/attend_section8_9.pdf
Department of Education and Children’s Services [DECS]. (2002). The Taskforce on Absenteeism. Adelaide, South Australia. Available at: http://www.schools.sa.gov.au/schlstudents/a8_publish/modules/publish/conten t.asp?id=9866&navgrp=200
Department of Education, Science and Training [DEST]. (2004) Time for Transparency in School Performance. Ministerial media release, 30 April, from Dr Brendan Nelson. Available at: http://www.dest.gov.au/Ministers/Media/Nelson/2004/04/n692300404.asp DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 43 ______Durbach, A. and Moran, S. (2004). Rights, Roles and Responsibilities: The right to education and the nature of obligations on Australian governments. Sydney: Dusseldorp Skills Forum.
Dusseldorp Skills Forum [DSF]. (2003). Key outcomes from a workshop on educational diversity. Sydney: unpublished paper derived from the 2003 ‘Learning Choices Expo’.
Education Review Office. (1995, updated 2002). Barriers to Learning. Wellington: Occasional Paper No. 9
Elliott, A. (2004). Alternatives to School Suspensions. Article in Brisbane Courier- Mail, 27 February.
House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training. (1996). Truancy and Exclusion from School: Report of the Enquiry into Truancy and Exclusion of Children and Young People from School. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service.
McCurry, D. (2002). Testing Interpersonal Understandings. Unpublished paper available from [email protected]
MCEETYA. (2001). Performance Measurement and Reporting Taskforce: Terms of Reference. Available at: http://www.mceetya.edu.au/taskfrce/task224.htm
New Zealand Ministry of Education. (2001). ‘Suspensions Report 2001’. Available region by region by links at: http://www.minedu.govt.nz/index.cfm? layout=document&documentid=7119&indexid=1010&indexparentid=1072
New Zealand Ministry of Education. (2002a). ‘A suspended issue’, Gazette, 81;08, 6 May 2002.
New Zealand Ministry of Education. (2002b). New Zealand Schools 2002. Annual report of the Ministry. Available at: http://www.minedu.govt.nz/index.cfm? layout=document&documentid=8851&data=l
New Zealand Ministry of Education. (2003a). ‘Te Mana Ki Te Taumata’, reported in Gazette, 82;01, 27 January 2003. Available at: http://www.edgazette.govt.nz/articles/show_articles.cgi?id=6334
New Zealand Ministry of Education. (2003b). ‘Suspensions Initiative working’, Gazette, 82;07, 21 April 2003.
New Zealand Ministry of Education. (2003c). ‘Tackling truancy’, Gazette, 82;20, 3 November 2003. 44 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______Oerlemans, K. and Jenkins, H. (1998). Their Voice: Student perceptions of the sources of alienation in secondary school. Proceedings Western Australian Institute for Educational Research Forum 1998. Available at: http://education.curtin.edu.au/waier/forums/1998/oerlemans.html
O'Keeffe. (1993). Truancy in English Secondary Schools, quoted and cited in United Kingdom. Cabinet Office. (2002). Truancy and School Exclusion Report.
Queensland, Department of Education. (2003). Annual Report 2002-2003. Brisbane: Education Queensland.
Queensland, Department of Education. (2004). Management of Behaviour in a Supportive School Environment. Brisbane: Education Queensland.
Queensland, Department of Education and the Arts (2004). Supportive School Environment: School disciplinary absences. Brisbane: Education Queensland.
Scottish Executive. (2002). Attendance and Absence in Schools 2001-2002. Statistics on line (published 6 December). Available at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00218-00.asp
Scottish Executive. (2003). Attendance and Absence in Schools 2002-2003. News on line (3 December). Available at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/pages/news/2003/12/SEED389.aspx
Social Exclusion Unit. (2002). Truancy and School Exclusion Report. Report commissioned by the United Kingdom Cabinet Office from the Social Exclusion Unit to the Prime Minister. London: Cabinet Office. Available at: http://www.socialexclusionunit.gov.uk/publications/reports/html/school_exclu /trhome.htm
South Australia, Department of Education, Training and Employment (DETE). (1999). Student non-attendance in South Australian government schools, Term 2, 1997. Participation and Achievement, Number 2. Adelaide: DETE.
South Australia Police. (2004). Managing Truancy Together. Available at: http://www.schools.sa.gov.au/schlstudents/a8_publish/modules/publish/conten t.asp?id=13354&navgrp=200
The Sunday Mail newspaper [Brisbane]. (2004). Our Truancy Crisis. Brisbane: issue of 11 April 2004.
Tasmania, Department of Education. (2003:1). Our Report Card. Available at: http://www.education.tas.gov.au/annualreport/02-03/compulsory/report.htm
Tasmania, Department of Education. (2003:2). Strategic Policy. Available at: http://connections.education.tas.gov.au/Nav/StrategicPolicy.asp?ID=00000845 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 45 ______Tasmania, Department of Education. (2003:3). Compulsory Education. Available at: http://connections.education.tas.gov.au/Nav/Strategy.asp?ID=00000017
United Kingdom Department of Education and Skills. (1999). Guidance on the Law: Annexe A: Guidance on Attendance Registers. Available at: http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/guidanceonthelaw/10-99/register.htm
United Kingdom Department of Education and Skills. (2000). Pupil Absence and Truancy from Schools in England: 2000/2001. Available at: http://www.dfes.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SBU/b000309/index.shtml
Victoria: Department of Education and Training. (2003). School Management 2002. Included in Standards and Accountability: Benchmark Publications. Available at: http://www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/standards/publicat/bench.htm
Wehlage, G. and Rutter, R. (1986). Dropping Out: How much do schools contribute to the problem? Teachers College Record, 87 (3).
Western Australia: Department of Education and Training. (2004). Gallop Government Crackdown on Bad Behaviour in Schools. Ministerial statement released 2 February 2004.
Wheatley, S. and Spillane, G. (2001). Home and Away: A Literature Review of School Absenteeism and Non-Engagement Issues. Melbourne: Victorian Statewide School Attachment and Engagement Planning & Interest Group.
Withers G. and Russell, J. (2001). Educating for Resilience: Prevention and intervention strategies for young people at risk. Melbourne: ACER. 46 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______
APPENDIX A
RECORD-KEEPING AND PUBLICATION BY SYSTEMS AND SCHOOLS
New Zealand
Authorised absences
illness, medical or dental appointments; days of religious observance; employment interviews; entrance examinations; study leave for senior students; dual school registration; family holidays during term-time; exclusion by the home school; itinerancy for certain ethnic groups; bereavements and youth caring duties; special occasions; public performances; birth of a child; lateness (bad weather or public transport difficulties). (Lateness under other circumstances, if common, should be regarded as unauthorised.)
Some systems go much further than others in categorising misdemeanours, especially those that lead to temporary ‘stand-downs’ or longer exclusions and expulsions. For example, New Zealand distinguishes, collects, (and publishes) statistics on the occurrence of, the following (New Zealand Ministry of Education, 2001:1):
alcohol; arson; continual disobedience; drugs and substance abuse; other harmful or dangerous behaviour; physical assault on other students; physical assault on staff; sexual harassment; sexual misconduct; smoking; theft; vandalism; verbal assault on other students; verbal assault on staff; weapons possession. DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 47 ______
Scotland
Attendance was defined as: participation in the program of educational activities arranged by the school.
Percentages for authorised and unauthorised absence relate to the total number of possible attendances. For many schools this is 380 half-day sessions during the school year.
In addition to actual attendance within the school premises, it covered: work experience; educational visits; day and residential visits to outdoor centres; college/consortium school study; interviews and visits relating to further and/or higher education; debates, sports, musical or theatrical productions etc. arranged by, or in conjunction with, the school; activities in connection with psychological services; school medical examinations off-site; hospital tuition.
Authorised absence was defined as: sickness; medical and dental treatment; bereavement; domestic circumstances relating to exceptional hardship at home; no school within walking distance and no transport arrangements; study leave; religious observance; family holidays where attendance is otherwise satisfactory; meetings prior to, and in, court; attendance at, or in connection with, a Child Care Review; attendance at, or in connection with, a Children's Hearing; weddings of immediate family; certified debates, sports, musical or theatrical productions not arranged by, or in conjunction with, the school; extended visits overseas to relatives; sanctioned, extended absence in relation to children of travelling [gypsy/Romany] families. 48 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______
Unauthorised absence was defined as:
temporary exclusions arising from incidents in or out of class; truancy, an application having been made to the education authority in relation to an attendance order; truancy, an appeal having been made to the Sheriff in relation to an attendance order; family holidays where attendance is otherwise unsatisfactory; truancy, defined as unauthorised absence from school, for any period, as a result of premeditated or spontaneous action on the part of the pupil, parent or both; unexplained absence.
APPENDIX B
THE RANGE OF RISK FACTORS FACED BY JUVENILES AND ADOLESCENTS
[from Withers and Russell, 2001: Figures 2-5, 26-29]
Two big caveats
One thing is clear … the concept of singe cause-effect relationships in this area is a nonsense … Relationships need to be viewed as forming a dense and complex web of interrelated, interacting, multidirectional forces. Batten and Russell 1995:50 [italics added]
Most risk factors tend to coincide and be inter-related. The concentration and co-occurrence of these kinds of adversities make it difficult to establish their independent, interactive and sequential influences on offending and anti-social behaviour. Farringdon 1996:105 [italics added]
Metafactors
Arching over all the various risk factors detailed in the next four figures, there are others which compound problems, or appear as consequences of insufficient resilience to withstand the pressures of risk outlined below.
marginalisation and social ostracism; offending and conviction; trans-generational models of behaviours and values; incarceration; contemplation of, or intention to, suicide; long-term poverty and/or unemployment in the family; single parenthood and isolation. DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 49 ______
Risk factors: THE INDIVIDUAL Psychosocial factors
* Self-esteem: Low self-esteem about specific area(s) or in general; lack of feeling of self-worth * Motivation: Low motivation, lack of interest, boredom, lack of engagement, low investment in prosocial goals; motivation towards antisocial goals; lack of interest in obtaining a satisfying job * Cognitive constructs, beliefs: Faulty beliefs about self and the world (example: unrealistic expectations of people); developmentally delayed levels of moral reasoning, empathy and other prosocial cognitions * Intelligence: Low intelligence * Ability to relate: Difficulty in establishing and maintaining positive interpersonal relationships * Bonding to family, school: Low attachment * Aggression: High level of anger and aggression
Physical factors
* Health, illness and disability: Physical or mental ill-health; sensory, physical, intellectual or socio-emotional disabilities * Birth weight: Low birth weight, small height, perinatal complications * Autonomic and central nervous system arousal: Low level of arousal
Behavioural factors
* Disruptive behaviour: Wide range of problem behaviours (e.g. tantrums, offensive language, provocation of others, attention seeking, teasing and bullying, violence), early onset and persistence of problem behaviours, alienation and rebelliousness, attitudes favourable to delinquency * Hyperactivity: Short attention span, constant physical activity, impulsivity, sensation seeking * Passivity: Withdrawal, disengagement, lack of participation, opting out (usually girls) * Pregnancy/motherhood: Unsafe sexual practices, early onset of sexual activity, physical effects (fatigue, stress) of teenage motherhood, also financial implications and barriers created by negative community responses * Offending: Early initiation, association with delinquent peers or criminal adults, adoption of antisocial norms, versatile delinquent behaviour * Substance use/abuse: Includes use of tobacco, alcohol, prescription and non-prescription drugs, inhalants, and illicit drugs, early initiation of drug use, association with drug- using peers or adults * Academic performance: Low literacy skills, poor academic performance, educational underachievement, continual experiences of failure, learning difficulties * Truancy: Early and chronic truancy, school refusal, persistent lateness, absence from classes * Association with antisocial peers, adults: Adoption of antisocial norms and behaviours * Sex work: Illegal, especially underage, involvement in sex work by girls and boys, for payment: money, drugs, housing, food. * Social isolation: Few if any friends, isolate ; impoverished social networks 50 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______
Risk Factors: THE FAMILY
Family structure
* Fragmented, reconstituted family structures: Marital breakdown, separation, teenage single mother, absent father, divorce, reconstituted family (step parent, de facto partner) * Family size: Large family size * Separation from family: Homelessness, foster care, multiple placements, ward of state
Family functioning
* Poor family management practices: Inconsistent, harsh or erratic management practices, poor supervision, permissiveness, parental rejection * Disturbed parent-child relationships: High parental indulgence, double bind relationships, smothering and over-protective parents, rejecting and neglectful parents, parental psychiatric problems * Conflict: High marital, parent-child and sibling conflict, cultural conflict, child rejection of parental values * Abuse: Physical, mental, emotional and sexual abuse, lack of parental concern, support or involvement, parental neglect * Modelling: Antisocial, alcoholic or criminal parents, antisocial parental attitudes, values, beliefs, norms and behaviours * Mobility: Frequent changes in residential settings and schools, transience * Family disorganisation: Extreme family disorganisation * Impoverished social networks: Isolation, lack of support * Expectations: Low/absent parental expectations for learning/achievement;
Family socio-economic status
* Income: Low parental income, associated with deprivation in many aspects of life, as well as presence of many negative influences * Education: Low parental educational attainment, associated with deprivation in many aspects of life, as well as presence of many negative influences * Employment: Uncertainty about employment, extended periods of unemployment DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 51 ______
Risk Factors: THE SCHOOL School organisation
* Organisational policies and practices: Rigid and restrictive policies and practices, inflexibility * Discipline: Authoritarian, repressive discipline, inconsistent or ineffectual application of policy, perception and treatment of some students as troublemakers, use of suspension and expulsion to marginalise then remove them * School leaving and re-entry: Lack of information and assistance to early leavers, barriers placed in the path of re-entry * Size of class, school: Large class size, with lack of individual attention, large school size without substructures to provide sense of belonging and pastoral care
Curriculum
* Content: Unrelated to the world of the student, uninteresting, unstimulating, small range of subject choice (especially in practical and vocationally-oriented areas) * Decision-making: Lack of student participation in decisions about curriculum organisation, content, process and assessment * Teaching-learning strategies: Emphasis on receptive, passive learning, minimal interaction with teachers and peers, lack of co-operative, activity-based and independent learning * Assessment: High competitive pressure, examination-dominated assessment, use of one-off rather than progressive assessment
School climate
* School culture: Negative, unsupportive, uninteresting, unchallenging, domineering, punitive, stultifying, inflexible, violent * Teacher/student relationships: Negative relationships, teachers’ lack of respect or support for, fairness to, understanding and acceptance of students, lack of interaction, teacher perception and treatment of students as immature * Peer relationships: Early peer rejection, intimidation, bullying, verbal and physical abuse, violence, sexual and racial harassment, presence of powerful antisocial gangs/peer groups * School counsellors: Absence of pastoral, welfare and counselling staff, absence of specialist staff to assist with academic problems * Student participation: No opportunity for student participation in decision-making structure or school organisation, students not seen as capable of productive involvement * School/home relationships: Lack of parent involvement, lack of communication, inconsistent treatment and requirements of young people by home and school * Staff professional development: Inability of staff to adapt to societal and educational change, or to the changing needs and behaviour of students 52 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______
Risk Factors: COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY
* Poverty: Implications to be found in virtually all contexts in which risk factors are identified, social disempowerment, extreme social and economic deprivation * Community norms: Norms favourable to antisocial behaviour * Neighbourhood disorganisation: High density urban neighbourhood with high crime rate, high mobility, physical deterioration, low levels of attachment to neighbourhood * Demographic factors: Gender, ethnicity DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE 53 ______APPENDIX C
SOME NOTES ON METHODOLOGY
C1 Categories and descriptors of non-attendance
Various systems distinguish between “authorised” and “unauthorised” absences. The latter may include truancy, occasional absenteeism, school refusal, school withdrawal and ‘dropping out’ by underage students. Suspensions and expulsions may also in some records be accounted as “unauthorised” absence: in others they are not collected or not allocated.
The language used to describe various types of student non-attendance varies, and in a way confuses the issues. In the internet searching that was part of the preparation of this paper, many different key-words had to be used to try to locate records in Ministry or systems data which would give some clear view of the extent of non- attendance. A selection:
ABSENCE[S] SCHOOL UNDER-AGE LEAVING ABSENTEEISM SCHOOL REFUSAL ATTENDANCE SICKNESS DISABILITY STAND-DOWNS EARLY LEAVING SUSPENSION EXCLUSION TIME OUT AT HOME EXPULSION TRANSITION ILL-HEALTH TRUANCY NON-ATTENDANCE WITHDRAWAL PART-TIME STUDY
Other expressions such “poor participation” or “educational disengagement” often enter the rhetoric.
While not actually absent from school, students sometimes fall into sub-categories which mean that they are not part of the school’s normal curriculum process for certain periods of time; for example, descriptions such as the following:
DETENTION DISCIPLINARY ABSENCE FROM CLASSROOMS OFF-LEARNING TASKS AND PENALTIES TIME OUT IN SCHOOL
Schools, to greater or lesser degrees, keep records of the latter occasions (sometimes they are required to by law), and they are rarely the subject of public report. But they contribute to the complexity of the whole issue of participation in learning, and might be kept in mind, as hidden additions to the records which are (or should be) the subject of public report. 54 DISENCHANTMENT, DISENGAGEMENT, DISAPPEARANCE ______
C2 Searches
No attempt was made to establish the existence or otherwise of attendance records for Catholic schools. Given the fractured nature of systemic and non-systemic arrangements within and between dioceses and archdioceses for provision of Catholic education, the task was considered too onerous.
Similarly, no attempt was made to capture data for other non-Government independent schools. Enquiries suggest that no aggregated data are in fact available, such records being kept confidential as a feature of each school’s independence.
APPENDIX D
MCEETYA’S PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT AND REPORTING TASKFORCE
The Taskforce was established in July 2001 at the twelfth MCEETYA meeting. (from MCEETYA, 2001:1)
Terms of Reference
The MCEETYA Taskforce on Performance Measurement and Reporting is to report to each meeting of the Ministerial Council on approaches to reporting on activities and outcomes by schooling systems. These approaches will support the achievement of and enable reporting on the National Goals for Schooling. In particular the Taskforce will provide advice on: The development of a small and strategic number of measures for the national reporting of comparable education outcomes recognising the work program outlined in the report to the twelfth MCEETYA meeting from the National Education Performance Monitoring Taskforce The development and maintenance of key performance measures as the basis for national reporting in the agreed areas Areas where it may be appropriate to establish national targets or benchmarks, in relation to the agreed key performance measures, which assist State and school level planning and reporting for improvement with a particular emphasis on the need to measure those elements that are crucial to increasing year 12 (or equivalent) completion The maintenance of the National Schools Statistics Collection including the presentation, publication and dissemination of statistical data collected as part of the collection to meet the needs of stakeholders and decision makers Generating data relating to resourcing of schools to meet agreed requirements for national reporting Consistent approaches in reporting to COAG, ANTA, MINCO and MCEETYA Improved public reporting on student learning outcomes.