School Attendance During the Senior Secondary Years

In the GENERATION study, students were asked how often they were absent from school in the past year. We classified this as "Never", "Sometimes", or "Regularly Absent" (Often or Very Often). The graph above shows that most students (approximately 71%) reported that they were sometimes absent from school in their senior secondary years.

The rate of occasional absenteeism did not substantially change as students progressed through their senior schooling years. However, the percentage of students who reported regular absenteeism (Often or Very Often) decreased by 6% from Years 10 – 12. Meanwhile, the percentage of students who were never absent from school increased by 6%. This suggests that regular absenteeism is less common as students enter and progress through their senior schooling years.

We compared the rates of school attendance by three equity groups: gender (male/female), self-identified disability (yes/no), and geographical area (regional or remote/major city). While the overall percentage of students reporting regular absenteeism declined throughout senior secondary school (Years 10-12), these groups of students had comparatively higher rates of regular absenteeism. The above graph shows that regular absenteeism was consistently higher amongst females (compared to males), students with disability (compared to students without disability), and students from regional and remote areas (compared to metropolitan areas). This suggests that students with a disability, regional and remote students and females may experience unique challenges which limit their attendance at school.

Reasons for regular absenteeism were reported in Wave 2 and 3 of the GENERATION study, when students were in Years 11 and 12. Students with regular absences were asked to indicate whether they were absent from school for any of the following reasons: pressure from friends, family health or caring, medical/health reasons (including illness or medical conditions, appointments, tiredness, stress, anxiety or depression), activities outside of school (including family events or other out-of-school activities), bullying, problems with teachers, to complete schoolwork, or other reasons.

The above graph shows that of these categories, the top 5 most common reasons that Year 11 students were absent from school were medical/health reasons (92%), activities outside of school (47%), to complete schoolwork (45%), for family health or caring reasons (27%) and bullying (15%). By Year 12, medical/health reasons were still the number one reason that students were regularly absent from school (86%), however a higher percentage of students reported regular absence to complete schoolwork (45%) than to participate in activities outside of school (42%). Additionally, school absence due to family health and caring fell to 17%, and school absence due to bullying fell to 10%. As students could report multiple reasons for absence, these percentages do not add to 100.

We conducted further analysis to understand the medical/health related reasons that females, students with disability and students from regional and remote areas were regularly absent from senior secondary school. Medical/health related reasons for absence could include: illness, medical condition or appointments, mental health issues (such as stress, anxiety and depression) and tiredness. As shown in the above graph, illness, medical conditions and appointments were the most common medical reason in Year 11 across all three groups. Mental health reasons were more common than tiredness for students with disability in Year 11 (66% vs 56%), but tiredness was more common than mental health for female students (68.82% vs 62.23%) and regional and remote students (69% vs 57%).

By Year 12, tiredness was the most common medical-related reason reported by females (73%) and students from regional and remote areas (70%), followed by illness, medical conditions and appointments (69% and 65% respectively) and mental health issues (60% and 43% respectively). By contrast, illnesses, medical conditions and appointments were still the most common reason for Year 12 students with disability (71%), followed by tiredness (68%) and mental health (63%). This suggests that the pressures of senior secondary school present differently across these groups.

Overall, the data story highlights several trends in this cohort of Australian students. Regular school absenteeism declined as students entered the senior years of secondary school. It is possible that regular absenteeism declined by Year 12 because students with poor school attendance patterns left school or because students become more engaged in their schooling. Despite this decrease, some students reported higher levels of regular absenteeism. This included females, students with disability and students from regional, remote and rural areas. The GENERATION data also suggests that students are typically absent from school on a regular basis because of medical/health reasons, out-of-school activities, or to complete schoolwork. The most common medical/health related reasons for absence in Year 11 and 12 differed slightly for females, students with disability and students from regional and remote areas. Higher-than-average absenteeism in senior secondary school may have implications for young people's post-school education and employment. These findings have potential implications for the types of programs that are delivered to improve school attendance in Australia.