A youth charity is raising concerns about silent disengagement among school students, as data shows thousands of kids haven’t been enrolled for more than a year.

In the last three years, 3458 of the Education Ministry’s non-enrolment cases for 5 to 15 year-olds have remained open for more than 13 months.

Almost two thirds of these are students aged between 12 and 14, while Māori and Pasifika students make up the majority of cases.

In 2024, about 1100 students weren’t enrolled in schools for over a year - that’s a 576% increase from 2015 (163).

Principals are required to notify the Ministry when a student has been absent for 20 school days, and they haven’t been informed the absence is only temporary.

A non-enrolment notification form is then completed, so agencies can start attempting to locate the student.

The Graeme Dingle Foundation works with disengaged youth, and CEO Jo Malcolm-Black said they’ve seen a rise in young people using their services in recent years.

“What we measure as well, because we are primarily in schools, is unjustified absences, so young people that are enrolled in school, but just aren’t coming.”

“And we have seen a significant increase since 2020,” she said

Malcolm-Black believes there’s been a rise in what the Foundation describes as ‘silent disengagement.’

“Lots of young people who are experiencing silent disengagement are simply just, flying under the radar.”

“They’ve become less connected with their friends, with their learnings and with their communities.”

“That can actually have a long-term impact on their long-term wellbeing, on their educational potential and any future opportunities that they might be looking at.”

She said the Foundation aims to create a sense of belonging for young people, so they can learn how to be resilient.

“If they’re not at school, they’re not going to learn that,” Malcolm-Black added.

Associate Education Minister David Seymour acknowledges chronic absence is a major problem, but believes it can be solved by four key moves the Government’s making.

“Budget 2025 includes an additional $140 million for attendance services. This will roughly double our capacity to work with truant and unenrolled students," he said.

Seymour added the new Stepped Attendance Response (STAR) system is designed to improve the management of students while they are at school, and reduce the number who become disengaged and unenrolled in the first place.

He said the Government’s also putting in place information sharing agreements between different departments.

“For example, we’ve been told that having MSD, Health, and Kainga Ora data would help Attendance Officers find unenrolled students.”

“At present they complain they spend too much time looking for students who have moved, but another Government department might have dealt with them more recently.”

Seymour’s also led the establishment of an attendance dashboard, which is updated daily.

She said it’s good to see the Government is wanting to address chronic absences.

“I think it’s courageous that they are wanting to tackle it. If you don’t say its name, you’re not going to address the problem.”

Malcolm-Black said early intervention and consistent support reduces the risk of disengagement.

“What I hope is that schools, social services, community organisations can connect and partner with the Government to actually support that.”

“I really believe it takes a village to raise a child, and I think if we can work together to support our young people, our rangatahi, tamariki, all of the children from the communities we work with, that we will be able to help them get through that.”

Jaime Cunningham is a Christchurch-based reporter with a focus on education, social issues and general news. Cunningham joined Newstalk ZB in 2023, after working as a sports reporter at the Christchurch Star.