Less than half the pupils in the southern region regularly attended school in term one as Covid-19 swept the country — and opinions differ on whether attendance has improved since.
Ministry of Education data shows regular attendance across Otago and Southland was 49% in term one, placing it above the national average of 46.1% and third out of 10 regions.
Regular attendance is classified as a pupil attending school on more than 90% of available half-days.
Ministry operations and integration leader Sean Teddy said the high levels of absences were caused by Covid-19, as well as unusually high levels of winter illness from March.
"Regional feedback indicated that, as well as the impacts of students staying home if they are close contacts or unwell, there may have been impacts on parents of Covid fatigue and of attendance seeming less important," he said.
Term two regular attendance statistics were planned for release in November or December.
Weekly data indicated some of these factors have continued into term two but it was too early to draw a conclusion on how the regular attendance rates would be affected.
In 2019, the average pre-Covid level of regular attendance was 72.8%, before dipping to 50.5% in 2020 and climbing to 66.8 in 2021.
The term one data found primary school pupils to have a lower regular attendance rate than secondary pupils, at 45.4% compared with 47.6%
Otago Primary Principals’ Association president and Port Chalmers School principal Vicki Nicolson said the absences were "unprecedented" as the pandemic meant long isolation periods rather than just one or two days off.
Term two and three were looking "much the same" as term one, although this could vary between schools, she said.
"I know nationally the numbers for Covid are decreasing but ... there is still significant Covid illness around Otago."
Some people were concerned about sending their children back to school.
"Those are the families that we need to be talking with, finding out what the reluctance is to have their kids back at school, and work through with them so their kids are in school."
School Principals’ Association president and Otago Boys’ High School rector Richard Hall said the data came as no surprise to anybody in the education sector.
"This year had definitely been the worst that most of us can remember," he said.
Term two had been similar to term one, but term three was better, with fewer cases of Covid and illness.
"The difficulty for schools now is how to try to catch up and continue on with the students ... given most missed so much time.
"We look forward to the end of winter and perhaps a relaxing of the isolation rule."
