Truancy officers offer short-term attendance boost, ignore teaching standards: Former NT teacher

Truancy officers are a ‘fear-based mechanism’ that only offer short term attendance relief and don’t address the root causes of learning difficulties, a former Territory teacher has said.

Truancy officers would only provide a short-term solution, says a former NT teacher and Education union leader. teacher Picture: Getty Images

Introducing truancy officers to Territory schools would only drive short-term relief, the NT’s education union has warned.

Ahead of the 2024 NT election, the Country Liberal Party has leaned on its plan to boost school attendance through truancy officers as part of its education policy.

But Australian Education Union NT president Michelle Ayres said the “fear-based mechanism” was a simply “school-adjacent” policy, and would not focus on learning outcomes for students.

Ms Ayres – who has previously taught in remote schools – said knowing students and how they learned was a key component of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, but it was often forgotten in overcrowded classrooms.

She said focusing on that code was key to boosting student engagement, attendance, and learning outcomes.

Australian Education Union NT president Michelle Ayres.

By way of example, Ms Ayres recalled working with year four and year five students who were “so disengaged from school they couldn’t spell the word cat”.

“I had a principal who believed in me enough to give me the resourcing and the time to sit down with those kids and help them understand, break down what it is that is missing.

“What is the missing link? How can I help provide that for you? How can I help you see that?

“It took a lot of patience and energy for me – 18 months of work – but those kids kept going to school, then they went into high school and they kept going to school and they kept learning, and they’re reading now.”

Ms Ayres said ensuring the Territory kept its billion-dollar boost by following the agreement’s recommendations would be key to driving lasting outcomes for NT students.

Ms Ayres said sustainability would only be possible if both parties worked together to build education policy.

“No matter who is in power, with this new bilateral agreement I think we have a really good opportunity for either government … to take it and run with it and create a really strong, sustainable education system in the Northern Territory,” she said.

“When it comes to who is to blame for the way the education system currently is, I don’t think we can blame one political party more than the other.

“Each has made mistakes when it comes to education, and now it’s time for both parties to own up and say, we will do things differently.”

Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro previously told Nine Darwin the CLP would uphold the agreements signed by Territory Labor two weeks ago.

Previously, academics concluded school attendance in remote schools across the country declined during a similar initiative launched by the federal government.

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s Remote School Attendance Strategy introduced attendance officers to select remote schools in late 2013.

In 2022 it was found that attendance at SRAS schools had declined by 8.3pc Australia-wide between 2014-19. Picture: Getty Images

Batchelor Institute researcher John Guenther – alongside other academics – in 2022 found attendance at SRAS schools across the country declined by 8.3 per cent between 2014-19.

Comparatively, the researchers found non-SRAS remote schools recorded a 5.7 per cent decline in attendance.

Mr Guenther in 2023 told The Educator that years of funding for the strategy “failed to achieve improved attendance and failed to engage students in learning”.

Education Minister Mark Monaghan said a re-elected Labor government would ensure each school had a “tailored attendance plan”.

“There is no simplistic solution to getting children to school that is why our government also continues to invest in engagement programs from early learning all the way to year 12, some include on-country initiatives, two-way learning, Families as First Teachers and continuing to build interactive Science, Technology, Engineering. Arts and maths centres,” he said.