Statistics on students' attendance from state and state integrated schools in Aotearoa New Zealand have become a discussion of importance to political elections. School attendance and truancy are much more than a politician's talking points. Educators and researchers know that students' attendance is linked to both student wellbeing and attainment. In other words, every day in school matters. And for some student groups, especially those students in low decile schools, attendance is particularly important.

In Term 2 of 2022, 39.9% of students attended schools and kura regularly. Regular attendance is the percentage of students attending more than 90 per cent of halfdays within a set period, usually a school term. For Term 2, 2022, this time-period consisted of 10 school weeks (96 half-days), consistent with most previous years. The attendance records of 757,776 students were reported and processed from 2,265 schools and kura (92.3% of all state and state-integrated schools and kura) for this period. This represents 96.8% of the student population in all state and state-integrated schools and kura on 1 July 2022.

This chart below, recently published by Education Counts, shows the dramatic changes in school attendance rates from 2019 to 2020.

The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) Child Poverty Report 2022, prepared by Bryan Perry, claims that data stretching from 2007 to 2021 show that New Zealand has seen a drop in the number of children in poverty. Poverty is defined essentially as indication of household resources being insufficient to meet basic material needs. The trend (see the charts below) has been falling for those households with children (i.e., ages 0-17) reporting “not enough” income for basics. This trend for New Zealand has been ignored by many who use a limited amount of data (e.g., just household income) or who insist that if only people got full-time work, their material hardship would lessen.  Instead, MSD’s main Household Incomes and Material Wellbeing reports show that not all households with low incomes are in hardship, and not all who report they live in hardship have low incomes.

Every two years the National Council of Women partners with Research NZ to undertake a comprehensive survey of gender attitudes in Aotearoa New Zealand. Across the three surveys so far (2017, 2019 and 2021), up to 42% of the respondents indicated they believed that gender equality has for the most part been achieved in New Zealand. This grand statement deserves more scrutiny. For example, the male respondents tended to show they were more optimistic about this than the female respondents. What would one expect to see and/or experience if gender equality had been achieved? It's worth revisiting some of the results of the Gender Attitudes Survey 2021. 

Beryl Anderson, ONZM (NCWNZ Hutt Valley Branch and Parliamentary Watch Committee member) crafted this chart of the 2022 Queen’s Birthday and Platinum Jubilee honours list. There is much to celebrate. Of the 187 awards given, 96 went to women and 91 to men. Women received more awards in the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZ to MNZM) at 59%, with men receiving more of the Queen Service awards (QSM and QSO) at 52%. Women received more awards than men in two categories: ONZM (55%) and MNZM (56%).

Analyse this chart of the 2022 New Year's Honours crafted by Beryl Anderson, ONZM (NCWNZ Hutt Valley Branch). In the 2022 New Year’s honours list, 183 awards were given to 91 women, 91 men, and one intersex. According to the Prime Minister's Honours Advisory Committee: “Our honours system is a way for New Zealand to say thanks and well done to those who have served and those who have achieved. We believe that such recognition is consistent with the egalitarian character of New Zealand society and enlivens and enriches it.” But if you examine Ms. Anderson's table more deeply, there is much to notice.