Victorian students top the country in attendance, but gap widens for disadvantaged

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Victorian students achieved the best attendance record in the country, but the nation’s schools are still struggling to fully bounce back after years of pandemic disruptions.

New student attendance data released by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority on Friday shows that overall student attendance rates have declined over the past decade and the gap is widening between our most and least advantaged schools.

The nation’s school attendance figures improved in 2023 as recovery from the pandemic continues, but there is still a downward trend over the past decade. Credit: iStock

Victoria recorded an overall student attendance rate of 89.3 per cent for 2023, with government schools sitting at 88.6 per cent, Catholic schools at 90.1 per cent and independent schools at 91.5 per cent.

The “attendance rate” is defined as the number of days of school attended by students in years 1 to 10, as a percentage of the total number of possible school days that they could have attended.

Victoria’s overall attendance figure was the highest of any state or territory. New South Wales came in second with 89.2 per cent across all school sectors, followed by the ACT with 88.8 per cent.

A Department of Education spokesperson said the numbers were a result of the “exceptional efforts of principals, teachers and school support staff” to focus on student engagement.

The nation’s overall attendance rate improved on last year, hitting 88.6 per cent in 2023 compared with 86.5 per cent in 2022.

But the numbers are yet to recover to pre-COVID-19 levels, and are 3.9 per cent lower than in 2014.

Back in 2019, students in year 1 to 10 achieved an attendance rate of 91.4 per cent, while in 2014, this figure sat at 92.7 per cent.

There are also signs that the attendance gap between the most well-off and most disadvantaged schools is growing.

In 2023, Victorian students from schools in the lowest quarter of socio-educational advantage had an attendance rate of 84.8 per cent, compared with 91.5 per cent for schools in the highest quarter – a gap of 6.7 per cent.

In 2018, the attendance gap was 3.9 per cent. Declines in attendance rates in 2021 and 2022 were largest for students in the lowest quarter of advantage, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority said in a report on the numbers.

Monash University professor Nicole Rinehart, who is director of the Monash Krongold Clinic focused on educational and developmental psychology, said students from less-advantaged backgrounds often find it harder to access help for issues which can impact school attendance, such as anxiety and neurodevelopmental conditions.

“There are great inequities [in access to support],” Rinehart said.

She said families of students with severe anxiety, which could result in school refusal, needed more support in the years after the pandemic.

“Through the pandemic, when children were experiencing high levels of anxiety around school, we had 20 Medicare sessions under clinical psychology…now that has been reduced to 10 sessions.”

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority said in its report that while all states and territories reported higher attendance in 2023 than in 2022, there was still a downward trend in rates since 2014 and more work needed to be done to determine the reasons behind this.

“Further analysis of reasons for absences is required to determine whether there has been an ongoing impact of COVID on attendance rates,” it said.

A Department of Education spokesperson said it had a range of programs in place to help keep students connected to their learning.

“We’re making sure that schools have the support they need to make sure that all students are engaged in learning – including through the Navigator Program [supporting students to return to education] and our nation-leading investments in student mental health.”

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