Data from the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority shows in 2024, the national student attendance level was 59.9 per cent. 

In Queensland, the overall attendance rate is 59.1 per cent,  64.1 per cent for primary school students and 51.8 per cent for secondary school students.

President of the Queensland Association of State School Principals, Pat Murphy, told Gary Hardgrave on 4BC Drive, “It’s a nationwide trend. It’s in all schooling sectors. It’s in the government schools, but it’s also in the Catholic and independent schools.”

“My biggest thing is that we’d ask that parents and grandparents and community members really get the message out. We’ve got to send our kids to school because if they’re not at school, we actually can’t impact learning. So we really need the children there.”

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