High school attendance drops to all-time low in Victoria: See the schools where it’s worst

Students are shirking class in record numbers, with public high school attendance plummeting to the worst levels in a decade. See where students took the most days off.

High School students, Generic, Picture: Getty Images

Bullying, stress, anxiety and staff shortages are contributing to Victorian government high school attendance plunging to record new lows, experts say.

A total of 94,000 students – 53 per cent of those in years seven to 10 – are now missing more than one day of school a week – up from 49 per cent two years ago.

Victorian state high school students are the only ones in the nation going to class less often in 2024 than two years ago, according to new figures released on Tuesday by the Productivity Commission.

In comparison, only 37 per cent of students in years seven to 10 in independent and Catholic schools are missing one day of school a week, with many private schools rebounding more strongly after Covid.

Data analysed by the Herald Sun shows some schools have less than a quarter of students meeting the 90 per cent attendance threshold.

These include John Fawkner Secondary College, Box Hill Senior Secondary College and East Preston Islamic College.

Schools posting a steep decline in attendance in the past two years alone include Bendigo Senior Secondary College, Gisborne Montessori School, Melba Secondary College, King’s College in Warrnambool and Epping Secondary College.

Bendigo Senior Secondary College. Picture: Facebook

School Can’t Australia director Tiffany Westphal said high levels of stress impacted a students’ ability to attend school.

“We need to consider changes to the school environment, changes to the curriculum, and more flexible ways of engaging with learning,” she said.

Across both public and private sectors, regular attendance in 2024 compared to 2015 has dived markedly by 20 or more percentage points.

Overall, 56 per cent of Victorian state students in 2024 from years one to 10 attended school at least 90 per cent of the time – down from 79 per cent in 2015.

This compares to two-thirds of Victorian private school students in years one to ten who attended school most of the time – down from 84 per cent in 2015.

Australian Catholic University inclusive education lecturer Dr Matthew White said vulnerable students had a high risk of low attendance levels.

Problems are exacerbated by the fact that “schools and teachers were stretched” due to staffing shortages and inadequate resources, he said.

Kristen Douglas from the National Youth Mental Foundation, headspace, said truanting – once known as wagging – was different from school refusal.

She said the latter “may be due to bullying, academic stressors, relationship issues, mental health, neurodiversity or other issues”.

“I think we’ve got to approach those two things in really different ways,” she said.

It comes as the Productivity Commission data also shows government schools have twice the number of lower socio-economic students as private schools – 28 per cent compared to 13 per cent.

The new figures also reveal that only 65 per cent of the 65,000 Victorian students who left school in 2023 were fully engaged in work or study or a combination of both in 2024.

The Victorian state school system has also posted the highest school dropout rates in a decade, with one quarter of year 10 students not completing year 12 in 2023.

Opposition education spokeswoman Jess Wilson said the “troubling data shows the depth of student disengagement with their education under Labor”.

New figures also show Victorian state schools have the second lowest commonwealth and state expenditure per student. Picture: Getty Images

“Whilst other states are making meaningful progress to strengthen student engagement, Victorian students continue to fall further behind,” she said.

Education Minister Ben Carroll said Victoria has the highest school attendance rates in the country but there was “more work to do”. “Attendance rates are different from attendance levels.”

The new figures also show Victorian state schools have the second lowest commonwealth and state expenditure per student (after South Australia) at $23,447.

The Victorian government contributes $19,628 per state school student, also the second lowest after SA.

The private school with the highest attendance level is St Thomas Aquinas, which is a small Catholic college with 222 students in rural Tynong in Gippsland.

The figures show 97 per cent of students meet 90 per cent attendance levels.

Next two highest are large elite city schools – Melbourne Grammar and Presbyterian Ladies’ College – which each have attendance levels of 95 and 92 per cent respectively.

The state school with the highest attendance level is Alamanda K-9 College in Point Cook, with 87 per cent of students attending class nine or more days a fortnight.

Apart from selective providers, other state schools with impressive attendance levels, include John Monash Science School (86 per cent), Boort District P-12 (84 per cent) and Cranbourne West Secondary College (83 per cent).

The schools where attendance levels have bounced back most strongly since Covid included St Thomas Aquinas College in Tynong – which also lead generally for best attendance – as well as Alphington Grammar School, where 75 per cent of students attended class 90 per cent or more of the time in 2024, up from 33 per cent in 2022.

Yesodei HaTorah College in Elwood have also been able to host students on campus on a regular basis since the pandemic, with 83 per cent of students having attended school at least nine days out of a fortnight in 2024, compared with only 44 per cent of students in 2022.

Mildura Christian College, Corryong College, Mansfield Rudolf Steiner School, Yarra Valley Grammar, St Catherine’s School in Toorak, St Andrews Christian College in Wantirna South and Alamanda K-9 College have also revived their school attendance levels since Covid, with the number of students attending 90 per cent or more of the time climbing by 30 percentage points from 2022 to 2024.

Mildura Christian College. Picture: Facebook

But some schools have continued to experience a decline in attendance levels post-Covid. Only 18 per cent of students attended East Preston Islamic College school 90 per cent or more of time in 2024, compared with 89 per cent in 2022.

Similarly, Bendigo Senior Secondary College observed a steep decline in attendance, with the amount of students attending 90 per cent or more dropping by half from 2022 to 2024.

Gisborne Montessori School, Melba Secondary College, King’s College in Warrnambool and Epping Secondary College have also had the amount of students attending 90 per cent or more in 2024 drop by 30 or more percentage points since 2022.