Engagement and Retention in Australian Schools

“I've said many times that I don't want us to be a country where your chances in life depend on who your mum and dad are or where you live or the colour of your skin.”
Federal Minister for Education Jason Clare

The Situation in Australian Schools
The traditional school model is not working in an increasing number of Australian communities, as evident in many rural and low socio-economic schools, particularly those with a significant number of First Nations students. It is generally agreed that disengagement and opting out of school can cause short and long-term problems that include academic failure and disruptive behaviour and can lead to youth contact with the justice and mental health systems.

In many Australian communities the situation is grim with a need to strengthen school-community collaboration to build social cohesion and mitigate school compositional effects. Strategies by schools and school systems to engage students in learning are often unsuccessful and the concept of equal outcomes for equal ability patterns becomes even more elusive. When students don’t attend school, if they are totally disengaged, then pedagogy, instructional leadership and curricula do not have any impact.

These concerns have been exacerbated across Australia by problems with student attendance rates and levels post Covid-19. Improving student attendance at school is an essential first step for Closing the Gap (CTG). The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported on the challenges facing WA public schools based on 2024 data: “WA Education Department data for 2024 shows small improvements in school attendance rates at most Kimberley schools. But there's still a huge rate of absenteeism of 80 per cent of high school students in Fitzroy Crossing and 63 per cent in Halls Creek.”

It is crucial students attend school and engage in classroom activities. School leaders have the moral responsibility to support student engagement and retention by ensuring a sense of belonging, working with the community, using data to drive improvement, and planning and implementing culturally appropriate interventions.

KEY FACTS
The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) cited the following (2024) with regard to student attendance at school. The attendance rate for students in Years 1-10 was 88.3%, down slightly from 88.6% in 2023. Student attendance rates and attendance levels have not returned to their pre-COVID levels. In 2019, national attendance rates were 91.4% and attendance levels 73.1%.The student attendance level (the percentage of students with attendance at or above 90 per cent) was 59.8%, down from 61.6% in 2023. Attendance rates and attendance levels: increased with the level of socio-educational advantage of the school; were higher among students in major cities than in remote areas; and were lower among students from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds than for non-Indigenous students. While the gap between attendance rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and non-Indigenous students increased slightly (0.2 percentage points) between 2023 and 2024, the gap in attendance levels narrowed by 0.7 percentage points.

Exclusionary School Discipline
The Age reported (29.06.2025) that school disengagement is contributing to youth crime. Victorian state schools expelled 266 students in 2023. The number of official expulsions reported is a fraction of students expelled. Informal expulsions have increased and dwarf official statistics. Crime in Victoria has increased by almost ten percent with a significant increase in youth crime. Data shows youth crime is increasing with more assaults, robberies and auto theft reported. Police have processed twenty percent more child offenders in the past twelve months.

In the United Kingdom, students who have been suspended in high school are twice as likely to not be involved in employment, higher education or training once they reach the age of 24. (Similar outcomes are occurring in Australia.) Exclusionary school discipline practices correlate with systemic inequities. School exclusion often precedes involvement in the criminal justice system. This is the so-called 'school-to-prison pipeline'.

2024 National Perspective
The 2024 data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Schools Report provides an updated account of the apparent retention rates from Year 10 to Year 12 across Australia. The data provides information on system performance and demonstrates that persistent failings require a re-think on appropriate interventions.

The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) continues to outperform all other jurisdictions with an apparent retention rate of 89.0%, significantly above the national average of 79.9%. Victoria (84.3%) and Queensland (81.2%) also exceed the national mean, the latter posting its strongest result since the COVID-19 pandemic. South Australia (80.6%) is slightly below average. Both New South Wales (77.2%) and Western Australia (74.4%) fall below the national benchmark, with Western Australia recording its lowest retention rate in over a decade. Tasmania (67.6%) and the Northern Territory (61.2%) have significant and persistent problems with regard to disengagement.

The data raises concerns on a number of issues including retention, national curriculum, post-compulsory pathways, social justice and building social cohesion. Addressing inequality in students’ educational outcomes has a history of Sisyphean failure despite the rhetoric espoused by many with responsibility for delivering on social justice. There is an urgent and immediate need for effective leadership to improve system and structural coherence across all educational jurisdictions in Australia.

Influences for Success
Teacher thinking, the intentionality, is the key to successful schools as teachers must know why they’re doing what they are doing. A positive school climate is a clear priority as schools must become the most inviting place in town because the greatest predicator of health, wealth and happiness in adult life is not achievement at school, but the number of years engaged in schooling. School belonging plays a crucial role in mental wellbeing.

The Grattan Institute’s, ‘Engaging students: creating classrooms that improve learning’ reported an increasing percentage of school students across Australia are unproductive: “Australia’s education system needs comprehensive reform to tackle widespread student disengagement in the classroom. As many as 40 per cent of school students are unproductive in a given year. Unproductive students are on average one to two years behind their peers, and their disengagement also damages their classmates and teachers.”

Students must be present and engaged to be ‘available’ for learning. The research shows that motivation and engagement are important for student achievement. Changes in student motivation and engagement throughout the course of the day, week or month have implications for teachers. Every moment, of every day and for every student matters. There must be a relentless focus by teachers on learning.

The USA experience shows the importance of an evidence-based framework to improve student engagement and retention. This is similarly demonstrated in Australian schools where there is a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) that is a data-driven, problem-solving framework designed to improve outcomes for all students. This system relies on a continuum of evidence-based practices matched to student needs. Solutions are multi-factored and require that context data must be collected and analysed on a regular basis to prioritise influential factors. The teacher is the key to engagement, change and the creation of success for students.

“Our tenet is that student learning success or failure is primarily the responsibility of educators and the quality of their practice selection, implementation, and result-based decision making." George Sugai

Improving School Attendance
To create effective, targeted strategies for teachers we first have to ensure that we have a clear understanding of the components of each problem. Evidence of both academic and social incentives for school attendance must be considered alongside any structural barriers and facilitators.

School-community collaboration is a fundamental part of solving the problems associated with non-attendance. The problems are complex and there is a need for individual schools to work with their communities to adapt and respond to improve impact. School-wide Positive Behaviour Support (S-WPBS) is central to the thinking in Victoria required to drive improvement and seen as crucial for success. Evaluation of the efficacy of S-WPBS in Victoria confirm improvements in student behaviour, staff confidence with behaviour support, and more connected and inclusive school communities.

PBIS provides six logical steps (as below) for consideration to prevent and respond to attendance challenges. The obvious strength of the PBIS attendance plan is it uses a feedback loop to measure the fidelity of the implementation based on student responsiveness to the school’s interventions. With the interventions reviewed and refined as necessary by a multi-disciplinary team to assist with the achievement of the desired outcomes.

PBIS 6-Point Attendance Plan
1.Use an existing school-wide team (e.g., PBIS, MTSS, mental health) to meet regularly and to facilitate an examination of the status of attendance.
2. Collect existing and new data that enable answering attendance related questions, for example, (a) What is current attendance rates? (b) Which and how many students are attending and not attending? (c) When and how often are students not attending? (d) What percent of students are chronically not attending school?
3. Set desired attendance rates (outcomes) based on answers to the previous question.
4. Identify what existing practices, strategies, etc. could be adapted and (re)implemented to achieve the desired attendance rates (outcomes). If existing supports are not available or appropriate, identify what other evidence-based supports might be adopted and integrated into current implementation plans.
5. Develop an implementation plan that includes monitoring of student progress and responsiveness and of implementation fidelity.
6. Develop adaptations and enhancements based on student responsiveness and implementation fidelity.

There are opportunities and responsibilities for making classrooms a place where instruction is effective, based on modelling and practising positive behaviours and delivering positive reinforcement in a safe and inviting environment. Spending in an arterial gush on ineffective interventions without an evidence-based approach is a profligacy that is neither affordable nor advisable given the extent of the current crisis in many Australian schools. There is an urgent need to apply a systematic, evidence-based approach to improve attendance and, in turn, help secure a literate future for every Australian. Student achievement, by inviting student involvement, is the quintessential part of a solutions-focused approach.

For many students, further decline in school attendance will provide little prospect of them securing the life skills for a prosperous future. School attendance is an essential first step in the process to repair the damage being done to our young people who are disengaged and uninterested in schooling. Student engagement and retention must become a priority for every school, for every parent, and for every student across the country.