Last updated: May 2026

Introduction

This page contains information on the number of students that attend school regularly, including analysis on reasons for absences (covering justified and unjustified absence).

More information about the collection, including when data are scheduled for release, can be found on the Attendance Data Collection page.

Starting with the publication of Term 1 2025 regular attendance data, there are some reporting changes to regular attendance and the details can be found here.

A new set of attendance codes was also introduced in Term 1 2025.

The main measure, regular attendance at school, measures the percentage of students who have attended more than 90% of the term.^[1] Historically, attendance data were collected for Term 2, however, from 2019 attendance data have been collected for each term.

Regular attendance for Term 1, 2026

Why is regular attendance important?

Attendance is linked to both student wellbeing and to attainment.

Student wellbeing is a key priority for the education system. Ministry of Education insights studies ^[2] show that attending school and kura regularly is, on average, associated with more positive wellbeing outcomes. Ministry analysis found that 15-year-old students who reported skipping a greater number of days of school in the previous fortnight reported worse outcomes on average for a number of measures of wellbeing; schoolwork-related anxiety, sense of belonging, exposure to bullying, motivation and experiences of teacher unfairness.

Attendance is also linked to student attainment in secondary students. Recent research ^[3] shows that each additional half-day of absence from school and kura is associated with a consistent reduction in the number of NCEA credits students subsequently attain – whether that is a student moving from 100% to 99% attendance or moving from 71% to 70% attendance. Students who are absent even 5-10% of the time (which is still considered “regular” attendance) nevertheless obtain fewer NCEA credits than those with higher attendance rates. In short, evidence suggests that there is no “safe” level of non-attendance which has no impact on student and ākonga wellbeing and attainment.

Measures

Regular attendance: percentage of students attending school regularly

Numerator:

The total number of students who have attended more than 90% of all school time in the term, from students enrolled for 20% or more of the term, and where time is measured in half-days.
(Data source: Ministry of Education: Attendance Survey)

Denominator:

The total number of students enrolled for 20% of the eligible half-days or more during the term, in each year, except 2020. In 2020 students need only be enrolled for 1 half-day during Term 2, due to students learning from home during COVID-19 Alert Levels 3 and 4.
(Data source: Ministry of Education: Attendance Survey)

Using the same half-days measure, irregular absence means students attended school more than 80% and up to 90% of the term, moderate absence means students attended more than 70% and up to 80% and chronic absence means students attended 70% or less of the available school days.

Reasons for student absence: Percentage of time by reason for absence

Numerator:

The total time of students who were absent from school in the term, where time is measured in minutes.
(Data source: Ministry of Education: Attendance Survey)

Denominator:

The total time expected in school for all students enrolled during the term, in each year.
(Data source: Ministry of Education: Attendance Survey)

Absences can be justified or unjustified:

Justified absence: An explained absence, within the school's policy as an acceptable reason for the student to be away from school. e.g:

• Absent due to short-term illness/medical reasons
• Justified absence – reason for absence within the school policy
• Stood down or suspended

Unjustified absence: An absence that is either unexplained or, explained, but the explanation is not within the school's policy as an acceptable reason for the student to be away from school. e.g:

• No information or throw-away explanation
• Absent with an explained but unjustified reason
• Holiday during term time
• Unknown reason

More information about school attendance/absence reasons is available here:

Regular attendance reporting changes

Starting with the publication of Term 1 2025 regular attendance data, we are using a more efficient and modern system for calculating and reporting on regular attendance. With the introduction of this system, we have also modified a small number of the rules for the statistical calculations to improve the quality of the statistics. These rules particularly impact:

• the calculation of regular attendance for Term 1 2020, affected by the first occurrences of Alert Levels in response to Covid-19
• how many days of attendance data are required for a student record to be considered valid (this particularly affects the inclusion or exclusion of attendance data for senior secondary students in Term 4)
• the treatment of any unknown (default) codes.

To ensure that our historic data remains consistent with current statistics, we have applied the rules for statistical calculations being used in the new reporting system to previously published data from Term 1 2019 onward. As a result, some of the historic data is different to what was previously published, although at the national level the differences are small in most cases. Statistics for years before 2019 will be available in a static file on Education Counts.

The most noticeable change is in the statistics for Term 1 2020, with regular attendance changing from 50.5% to 67.9%. This is the period when the first Covid-19 Alert Levels 3 and 4 (lockdowns) occurred. In later terms the Ministry introduced a different method for calculating regular attendance over lock-down periods. Term 1 2020 statistics have now been updated to reflect the same calculation used for subsequent terms which included lockdowns.

The other main changes affect regular attendance for Term 4 and whether most senior secondary students are included or excluded from the regular attendance calculations.

Statistics for population sub-groups may have changed more substantially than national statistics, in particular for student year levels. Outside of the differences for Term 1 2020 and Term 4, the variance is within 1 percentage point of the previous statistics.

Changes to attendance codes

From Term 1 2025 a new set of attendance codes was introduced.  Some codes have been combined with others, within the relevant category of present, justified absence or unjustified absence. Justified absence for an overseas posting has been combined under the Justified (Other) absence code. All other code changes are within the Present codes. More information about the attendance code changes, including a full revised code list and decision tree, can be found here.

Interpretation issues

Detailed attendance records are required for the analysis performed in this report, therefore only schools that can provide attendance data electronically are able to participate in this analysis. In earlier years, there were more schools that could not provide electronic extracts of their attendance data, and these schools were typically smaller primary schools. Therefore, the data in this analysis has become more representative over time, as more schools are able to provide this data.

Being present at school does not include justifiable (nor unjustifiable) absence from school but does include classes where a student is at school attending an appointment or on a school organized outing.

Footnotes

1. Attendance is measured in half-days.  A half-day is a minimum of 2 hours either before or after noon, contributing to the minimum 4 hours of school a day.
2. He Whakaaro: School attendance and student wellbeing, Ministry of Education, February 2020.
3. He Whakaaro: What is the relationship between attendance and attainment?, Ministry of Education, February 2020.