Education Minister Blair Boyer warns parents keeping kids from school will be prosecuted

Parents who are keeping their children away from school are in the sights of the Education Minister, as parents of seven young people face prosecution.

Parents of seven young people who are chronically absent from school are facing prosecution, as the state’s Education Minister hires a team of new truancy officers to improve attendance.

Blair Boyer has revealed three potential cases against parents are being assessed by the Crown Solicitor’s Office and are “one step away” from prosecution.

If the cases proceed to court, the parents face a fine of up to $5000.

It would be the first attempts at prosecution in five years.

In another case the Child Protection Department is considering applying for an order to force the parents to send their child to school.

Mr Boyer would not give details about the seven students involved across the four cases - such as their ages or how much school they had missed - but described them as “at the most serious end of the truancy spectrum”.

Education Minister Blair Boyer. Picture: Emma Brasier

“These are parents who are actually stopping their kids from going to school,” he said.

“We need proper legal advice on the likelihood of them being successful. (But) any cases that are potentially progressing to prosecution, it is pretty serious.

“It’s not just an idle threat. We use this as a last resort when nothing else has succeeded.”

The state government employs 34 school truancy officers who are tasked with trying to engage parents and offer solutions to get children back to the classroom or online learning.

Mr Boyer said three extra truancy officers, with a social work background, had begun operating a phone line to provide swift advice across the state.

Another three officers will join a pilot program working with Aboriginal students who aren’t attending school, to be run by Aboriginal-led organisation KWY.

Mr Boyer said the non-attendance rate for Aboriginal students was double that of non-Indigenous pupils, although he could not give the figures.

If a child is absent for 10 days or more in a term it is considered “chronic non-attendance”.

Shortly after becoming minister in late March Mr Boyer asked his department to review cases where “prosecution might be justified”.

He has said he is willing to make changes to legislation if it proves too difficult to prosecute under current laws when authorities “firmly believe” it is warranted.

The Advertiser’s Save Our Kids campaign is lobbying for changes to better safeguard at-risk children, including prosecuting parents who repeatedly fail to send them to school.

There are numerous cases where children have died or been seriously harmed and they had absent from school for long periods.

Two parents were last prosecuted in 2017.

In 2020 the maximum fine was increased from $500 to $5000, but the powers have not been used since.