Mrs SALLY QUINNELL (Camden) (11:07): My question is addressed to the Premier. Will the Premier update the House on the immediate action the New South Wales Government is taking to increase attendance rates in public schools and to get better outcomes for students?

Mr CHRIS MINNS (Kogarah—Premier) (11:07): I thank the member for Camden for her question. As a former teacher of face‑to‑face education in New South Wales schools, I need to tell the House that the challenges faced by schools and school students every day are profound. We need to do better to get better outcomes for schools right across this State. We do not want education in New South Wales to fall behind, but for that not to happen, we need to increase school attendance. There is a practical and reasonable reason why attendances in schools have declined in recent years, and I am not going to criticise the former Government for it. Clearly, it is as a result of the COVID pandemic.

One of the habitual things that happened for families across this State during the COVID emergency was that, because schools were closed down for a number of weeks, in some instances it became a practice for students to skip the odd day here or there. Every parent in this State has been there themselves. They understand the pressure early in the morning when making a borderline decision about whether to send their child to school, and they make a decision to keep them at home. That is completely understandable and no‑one would blame any parent in this State for that. However, the New South Wales Government is launching a campaign with the Department of Education so that parents and students understand that every day matters. When it comes to a student's education, the odd day off can have a profound impact on their attaining their ultimate education. Having one day off a fortnight would lead to four weeks a year lost in absences, which, over the child's entire education, would amount to a full year of schooling lost as a result. I can imagine that these absences creep up on families. It is not necessarily immediately apparent that so many days in the classroom have been missed.

The Government intends to have a 95 per cent attendance rate for students in our public schools. In 2022 the attendance rate hit 85 per cent, which is 10 per cent lower than where we want it to be. That number has reached the high 80s, but we need to do better. We believe the Every Day Matters program will have a big impact on turning around educational obtainment in our schools. Independent studies reported in 2017 that positive attendance behaviour for year 7s led, on average, to three months of increased schooling or better outcomes for year 9 kids. That is a reasonably short period and an indication of how these things can add up if there are repeated student absences. [Extension of time]

I am aware, of course, of the irony of having a gallery full of school students in the Chamber and obviously not in the classroom today. I would love to tell them that they will get a better education in here than in the schoolroom. But, unfortunately, I cannot make that bold claim. But the most recent Programme for International Student Assessment results indicate that New South Wales has dropped from sixth to twenty-third in the world for reading, from ninth to thirty-first in the world for maths and from third to twenty-third in the world for science. These are major and steep declines in education outcomes in New South Wales. We are determined to reverse it. Part of reversing it is improving wages and conditions for public school teachers, and part of it is ensuring that kids get the best out of their education, which means turning up whenever and wherever they possibly can.