Attendance to determine school lunch funding from Term 2
A programme designed to prevent tamariki from learning on an empty stomach is being repurposed as a truancy tool, with school lunch funding tied to attendance from Term 2, education union NZEI Te Riu Roa warns.
“The primary goal of the lunch programme is to reduce food insecurity, which directly impacts a student’s ability to learn. However, by linking school lunch funding to attendance, the Government is now using this welfare initiative as a stick to crack down on truancy,” said Tute Mila, Principal of Arakura School and NZEI Te Riu Roa national member leader.
“Students most in need are the ones receiving these lunches. Reducing a school’s funding due to their absence could worsen existing inequities.
“Attendance is influenced by many factors including family circumstances, illness, and housing insecurity. Linking lunch funding to attendance simplifies a complex issue and may be ineffective as previous evaluations have found no significant change in attendance from the school lunch programme alone,” Tute Mila added.
As an internal model school, Arakura is directly affected by the Ministry of Education’s shift to attendance-based funding. From Term 2, payments will be based on 90 per cent of the school roll or the actual number of meals delivered, whichever is higher.
Ministry data shows the programme provides lunches every school day to more than 242,000 students across 1,000 schools and kura. Arakura is one of 278 schools funded directly ($4.51 per student) to prepare meals in-house. This model supports over 50,000 students nationwide.
“We urge the government to separate basic nutrition from punitive attendance targets and put the wellbeing of our tamariki first,” Tute Mila said.
These lunch funding changes coincide with the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill, which proposes stricter attendance rules and reduces the flexibility for principals to grant justified absences.
Martyn Weatherill, Principal of Laingholm Primary School and a member of NZEI Te Riu Roa Principals’ Council, says the focus on compliance misses the mark.
“Every principal wants children in school every day. The question is whether this new mandate increases schools’ available resources and capacity to help, or simply increases the reporting they must do,” Mr Weatherill said.
“While the focus on attendance is welcome, without a parallel plan to ensure that returning students are able to participate and progress, we risk recycling disengaged students back into environments that remain unable to meet their needs. This will worsen, rather than resolve, long-term non-attendance.
“The needs of a non-attending student are met through positive relationships and effective resourcing, not a mandatory plan on a website.”
ENDS