[amabanana]

Parents who cannot come up with a good reason why their child missed school face a $70 fine from next year in Victoria.

News Limited says the crackdown is aimed at parents whose children are absent without a reasonable excuse for more than five days in a year and who won't co-operate with the school to improve attendance.

Excuses such as taking the child shopping, visiting friends or relatives or other leisure activities won't cut it with the Department of Education, which will be issuing the penalties.

The paper says that currently, problem parents who let their children miss school must be taken to court in order for a fine to be issued but no one has been pursued under the existing legislation.

Here is the article.

What do you think?

[noi'mnot]

I think it's stupid. Addressing the reasons for school non-attendance would be much more useful than forcing parents to pay fines.

[BobTheBottersnik...]

Exactly. Helping people address the reasons why they think that school is less important than other activities would be a far more sensible way of addressing chronic absenteeism.

[Therese]

I also think it is a stupid idea. Looking at the big picture and trying to address the reasons some families have low attendance levels seems like a much better thing to do.

[RealityBites]

We are every day school attendees and I still think it's stupid. I am still the parent. Also fairly hypocritical when I was reading an article on the weekend about homeschooling and how so many children in Australia are not even 'in the system' at all.
And how are they chasing up money from lower income earners, or neglectful parents who just CBF?

[EssentialBludger]

I think it would primarily be aimed at those cases that already have DOCS involvement and parents who just don't GAF about their child's education. In which case I think the idea has merit.

I don't think the general population of loving parents need to worry too much.

[lilmissmars]

I think it's fine. But then again my son only missed 4 days of school last year with genuine health reasons not to go.

I actually know people who have let their kids miss school so they (the parent) could have a sleep in. I am certain they would not do this in a fit if it would start costing them money as a repercussion!

[Persnickety_]

I think it is a terrible idea, in my experience the kids that have the most unexplained absences from school come from the families least likely to be able to pay $70 fines.

[noi'mnot]

I think it would primarily be aimed at those cases that already have DOCS involvement and parents who just don't GAF about their child's education. In which case I think the idea has merit.

I don't think the general population of loving parents need to worry too much.

So how is a fine going to help here? How is that going to make these parents cooperate with the school so that their children get an education? It's not going to make them GAF about their child's education, it's going to make them p*ssed off at the school!!!

[Eight.years]

How's that going to work? It doesn't take that much nouse to write 'explosive dihorrea' on the form rather than 'we took the day off to watch DVDs and play'.

And yeah, there'd be no extending that nation wide, as there are communities where student attendence rate is as low as 53% (according to some random trawling through MySchool, so there are probably lower ones I just didn't find). That would be a whole lot of taking parents to court in towns that don't even have a full time court house.