New national network tackles school attendance crisis

A new national initiative is taking shape to address one of Australia’s most pressing educational challenges: declining school attendance.

To tackle this complex issue, Deakin University researchers Associate Professor Glenn Melvin  and  Dr Lauren Cameron  from  SEED Lifespan have joined fellow researchers, educators and professionals across the country to form the   Australian Network for School Attendance (ANSA).

School attendance in Australia has been steadily declining, with a sharp drop following the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), national attendance rates fell from 90.9% in 2021 to 86.5% in 2022, with a slight recovery to 88.3% in the subsequent years.

More alarmingly, the number of students who are chronically absent (missing more than 10% of school days) continues to rise.

This issue has gained national attention with the 2023 Parliamentary Inquiry into School Refusal highlighting the complex barriers many students face and a new Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) report (PDF, 1.8MB), published at the start of 2025, documents the trends in attendance since the pandemic.

Both these reports drew on expert evidence provided by Associate Professor Glenn Melvin with AERO also commissioning Deakin researchers Associate Professor David Heyne and Dr Lauren Cameron, together with Associate Professor Lisa McKay-Brown (University of Melbourne), to undertake rapid literature reviews on the barriers to school attendance and interventions to address student absence.

At the 2024 International Network for School Attendance conference, founding member and President Associate Professor Glenn Melvin, Secretary Associate Professor Lisa McKay-Brown and fellow colleagues recognised an acute need for a network to focus on the challenge of school attendance at a local level.

The newly-formed Australian Network for School Attendance brings together a passionate collective of professionals across education and research who will work together to further improve student attendance and engagement nationally.

Founding members include representatives from universities and education departments including Associate Professor Glenn Melvin, Dr Lauren Cameron, Kat Chadbourn and Amy Meade from Deakin, Associate Professor Lisa McKay-Brown (University of Melbourne), Emma Aorangi (Tasmanian Department for Education, Children and Young People), Leanne Brooke (NSW Department of Education and Training), Dr Matthew White (Australian Catholic University) and Belinda Burgess, Melanie Franciscus and Catherine Munro (Catholic Schools Paramatta Diocese).