In January, the National Report on Schooling in Australia found school refusal has more than doubled the number of young people homeschooled by parents since 2019.
In 2014 alone, more than 1.6 million Australian schoolchildren missed a month’s worth of lessons, with new data showing school attendance falling near pandemic-level lows.
The report found that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, as well as students from the poorest families, have suffered the biggest falls in school attendance over the past five years. Nearly two-thirds of Indigenous students missed at least a month’s worth of lessons last year, compared to just over half of them in 2019.
Dr David Roy, a senior lecturer at the University of Newcastle’s School of Education, has been researching how the Creative Arts can be leveraged for inclusion, and to support diverse learners – particularly those with disabilities.
He says in many ways the raw data from the 2023 National Report in Schooling is unsurprising.
“Attendance rates for children are down slightly, and whilst not significant, it does indicate a trend that authorities need have awareness of, particularly in minority group demographics, as it may indicate larger systemic issues that lead to disengagement from education,” Dr Roy told The Educator.
“This too is reflected in retention rates after Year 10 which are also down, more so for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Interestingly, or maybe sadly unsurprisingly, ACARA provide no data on retention rates for children with a disability.”
‘Something is going wrong at a fundamental level’
Dr Roy said the continued increased of homeschooling numbers – especially amongst children with a disability – suggests that certain marginalised groups are not having their educational needs met by the formal schooling system.
“The decline in workforce numbers, seems to have plateaued, stemming the flood of teachers leaving the school system. More work needs to be done to make teaching an attractive occupation,” he said.
“With NAPLAN results, in literacy Australian students are declining in achievement despite the imposition of phonetics across all States, perhaps leading to a suspicion that balance literacy teaching may be more beneficial. Numeracy is mixed with Years 7 and 9 in decline whilst Years 5 and 7 so some slight improvement.”
Overall, says Dr Roy, student retention, attendance and indeed achievement is not improving despite increased funding across all sectors.
“Something is going wrong at a fundamental level,” he said.
“It may be time we start to address not only the inequities in systems, whether between public and private, or rural/remote and urban schools; but the very basis of how we structure schools and education if we want to stop the drift away from schools and the drift away from success.”