Ashburton Mayor Neil Brown has no plans to add truancy officer to his mayoral duties.

Associate Education Minister David Seymour has sent a letter to mayors across the country asking them to help improve school attendance.

But Brown said mayors have enough on their plates without adding knocking on doors and rounding up wagging students.

School attendance is not a core role or focus of the council but “being leaders for the community is”, he said.

“Keeping children in education has better outcomes.

“If we can help with that in a small way then that’s okay but it won’t be a high priority [for council].

“If a prod from a mayor, councillors, or member of the community gets them going to school and learning, that’s a positive.”

In his letter, Seymour listed four things mayors could do to help, including speaking with

their community about supporting schools to improve attendance.

“Even small steps like encouraging local businesses to be aware that school-aged children should be at school during school hours is helpful,” Seymour wrote.

Brown said the council already provided funding to Safer Mid Canterbury - $220,500 this year - which is contracted by the Ministry of Education to provide the district attendance services.

Safer Mid Canterbury chief executive Kevin Clifford said they cover the Ashburton District as well as the Geraldine catchment.  

“Council does provide funding to Safer Mid Canterbury which demonstrates a commitment to supporting the wellbeing of our community across a very wide array of service areas,” Clifford said.

School attendance numbers in Mid Canterbury are higher than many other areas in New Zealand Clifford said.

The Government’s attendance dashboard shows the levels in Canterbury and the Chatham Islands, covering 269 primary and schools, averaged 89.2% during the first term.

The Government’s target is 94%.

Brown said the Mayor’s Taskforce For Jobs, run by the council, also helps youth to seek further education, training and work.

Local Government NZ president and Selwyn Mayor Sam Broughton said Seymour’s request was confusing considering the Government asked councils to get back to basics and remove the focus on four wellbeing pillars.

“Then they ask us to do stuff that feels about wellbeing.

“It’s a clash of requests.

“Being told to just focus on the roads and water is a completely different message than 'please also pick up this thing a minister wants, and this other thing a minister might want'.”

Broughton said he cared about school attendance and it was important for councils to engage with schools, but education is a core role of central Government.

Selwyn District councillor Sophie McInnes said Seymour’s request was an act of “distraction politics”.

When the Ministry of Education is cutting attendance services (truancy officers) and Seymour "makes a cheery suggestion that local government and businesses could step up instead, he's actively avoiding every single real issue that impacts whether a child gets to school each day."

In a statement released this week, Seymour said positive educational outcomes lead to better health, higher incomes, better job stability and greater participation within communities.

“I’m calling on mayors to be champions for education in their regions. When students go to school, communities are stronger and better prepared for generations to come.”

By Jonathan Leask