Tackling school attendance problems in Ireland

4. Summary of findings and policy considerations

Similar to many countries, school attendance problems have become a key challenge in Ireland, especially since the COVID‑19 pandemic. In primary education, the percentage of students who lost 20 or more days of schooling increased from 12% in 2017 to 40% in 2021 and remains relatively high at 22% in 2023. In secondary education, it increased from 15% to 27% over the same period, but fell to 21% in 2023 (TESS, 2025[3]). The country has implemented several policies and practices to reduce the rate of absence.

Recent TESS reports indicate that, while absences remain high, total days lost and chronic absence have declined for the second consecutive year (TESS, 2025[3]). The then Minister of Education emphasised that school attendance is a priority, since absences affect not only learning but also social development (Department of Education and Youth, 2025[40]).

Ireland has introduced new measures, including a multimedia campaign promoting consistent attendance and the Anseo Framework, which supports schools and families in addressing absences (Department of Education and Youth, 2025[40]). To tackle SAP further, Ireland could consider a combination of approaches, as described below.

4.1. Collaboration among departments, agencies and school staff

In Ireland, responsibilities for school attendance are shared across multiple bodies, making co-ordinated action essential. The DEY holds overall responsibility for school-attendance policy. It develops national policy, leads public campaigns, and works in partnership with TESS and schools to address SAP. TESS is responsible for ensuring that children attend school regularly or otherwise receive a minimum education. Its Educational Welfare Service, deploys Educational Welfare Officers to work directly with schools and families and collects attendance data for national reporting. Schools are required to maintain accurate student enrolment and attendance, prepare and submit a Statement of Strategy for School Attendance to TESS, submit Student Absence Reports, Annual Attendance Reports, and refer students of concern to Educational Welfare Service. Moving forward, it will be important to strengthen these collaborations among stakeholders further, and to focus on capacity building of teaching staff.

4.1.1. Strengthening the collaboration among departments, agencies, services and schools around school attendance

SAP intersect with several policy areas, including education, child welfare, health, social policy and housing. Effective solutions depend on consistent collaboration across all relevant departments, agencies and services. This includes co-ordinated supports for students and families, structured data-sharing arrangements, and regular formal and informal communication between stakeholders. The then Education Minister McEntee indicated that attendance should become a cross-government priority from early childhood onwards (Department of Education and Youth, 2025[39]). Building on this commitment, strengthening inter-departmental and inter-agency collaboration would ensure a more integrated, preventive and whole-system approach to improving school attendance.

4.1.2. Embedding school attendance and student engagement in initial teacher education and continuing professional learning

While school attendance is not the sole responsibility of teachers, they are often the first point of contact for students and parents. Strengthening professional capacity is crucial not only for responding to SAP, but also for fostering a whole-school culture that promotes attendance, belonging and engagement. Teachers need to be able to recognise SAP, understand its multiple drivers, support students and collaborate with school leaders and non-teaching staff to address SAP effectively.

In Ireland, attendance is currently not a dedicated component of initial teacher education or continuing professional learning, which may limit teachers’ preparedness to identify and respond to persistent absence and disengagement. Ireland could therefore consider strengthening attendance-related competences within teacher education standards and professional learning frameworks. This could include training on the drivers of SAP, links with student well-being and engagement, relationship-building with students and families, and the use of attendance data and early warning systems to support preventive and co-ordinated responses.

4.2. Engagement with stakeholders

TESS launched a five-year strategic plan to promote school attendance, which includes a series of webinars, a poster competition and a multimedia campaign. More specifically, the new multimedia campaign seeks to encourage all those involved in the lives of children and young people, including parents, teachers and communities, to support and prioritise regular school attendance. By targeting different actors through different media outlets, the campaign emphasises the key message that attending school matters. Beyond the campaign, the DEY engages with Education Partners on education policy (OECD, 2024[23]). TESS also has regular engagement with key stakeholders. Moving forward, it will be important to include the voices of parents and students in policymaking and implement whole-school and whole-community approaches.

4.2.1. Including the voices of parents and students in school attendance policies and practices

School attendance is not only the responsibility of schools but requires the collaboration and buy-in of students and parents. Active family involvement, through regular and meaningful communication with schools, can improve student attendance. That is why it is important to include their voices in designing and implementing policies and practices. While formal requirements for consulting parents and students about school attendance are limited in Ireland, national guidance encourages schools to engage families when concerns arise. TESS already recommends regular consultations with students and their families with schools through the Statement of Strategy for school attendance, and the government has implemented different mechanisms such as the Student Participation Unit in the DEY. Moreover, the Government is progressing the Education (Student and Parent Charter) Bill. This Bill provides for all schools to have a Charter and for the Minister to issue Charter Guidelines, following consultation, in accordance with which every school’s Charter shall be prepared, published and implemented. One of the key concepts of the Bill is the need for a school to consult with students and their parents on individual school plans, policies and activities. This approach aims to ensure that the various views of students and parents on issues and policies are heard and responded to by schools.

In the future, it will be important to consolidate this information at the system level to draw meaningful insights. For instance, the OECD team learned that some Educational Welfare Officers are sensing a shift in parental attitudes after the COVID-19 pandemic towards the need for compulsory daily school attendance. Educational Welfare Officers and schools report an increase in casual non-attendance, yet this information remains anecdotal and not systematically collected. TESS could thus search for mechanisms to provide an infrastructure for these voices, e.g. through quantitative or qualitative surveys among Educational Welfare Officers in the long term, and through other structured consultations with selected Officers in the short term.

4.2.2. Implementing whole-school and whole-community approaches to increase school attendance

School attendance is a shared responsibility of the school and the community. To tackle SAP, it is important that all key actors in school and the community are involved, including school leaders, teachers, non‑teaching staff (such as social workers, psychologists, special needs assistants, therapists etc.), students, parents, families and community members. In Ireland, for example, Home School Community Liaison Coordinators play an important role in supporting students and their families through home visits and are a key link between the family and the school.

Providing further support to schools for families and students who have been referred to Educational Welfare Services will also be crucial. Since Educational Welfare Officers do not currently have the capacity to deal with all cases referred, increasing the capacity of other actors in school and raising the number of Educational Welfare Officers could provide further support.

The planned measures of the DEY are already going in this direction: they include continued investment in the Educational Welfare Services, including the expansion of Educational Welfare Officer capacity (Department of Education and Youth, 2025[39]). The aim is to make the follow-ups to referrals timelier.

The DEY also plans a continued investment in the SCP and better planning between the SCP and the range of supports available through the non-formal education sector in youth so that the range of young people’s needs during school days, school holidays and weekends can be best planned for and met (Department of Education and Youth, 2025[39]). In addition, focusing on preventative measures to SAP and exploiting all possible early interventions for irregular attendance will also be crucial.

4.3. Monitoring of school attendance

Inspectorates’ insights have strong potential to inform attendance monitoring policies by highlighting what works in practice. In Ireland, the Inspectorate reviews attendance policies in DEIS schools and provides recommendations aligned with national guidelines, with attendance a key inspection focus in 2025. Inspection evidence has consistently emphasised the effectiveness of supportive, responsive approaches over sanction-based or reward-driven strategies, drawing directly on student feedback. While school-level external evaluation in Ireland provides valuable feedback to schools on attendance, it will be important to also strengthen central-level monitoring of school attendance.

4.3.1. Strengthening central-level monitoring of school attendance/absence

Accurate and reliable data collection is essential for addressing SAP effectively. Monitoring of attendance is a common practice among OECD countries with some education systems implementing real-time monitoring. The DEY is currently doing a real-time data scoping project (Department of Education and Youth, 2025[40]). If fully developed and implemented, a real-time monitoring system of SAP could enable earlier interventions in Ireland. Moving forward, more ambitious plans could involve regular data collection at the student rather than school level and adjusting the legislative framework and technical infrastructure so that these pieces of information can be shared with the DEY to be connected to student background characteristics and performance. Student-level data on attendance will enable the analysis of patterns in attendance, in addition to the focus on 20+ day absences. Merging with other student characteristics can then foster more targeted interventions.

With such strong infrastructure in place, it would also be important for TESS to provide meaningful feedback and analysis on attendance patterns to individual schools. For this purpose, it will be critical to ensure that school staff understand and know how to utilise the data they are working with (e.g. through Anseo). Capacity-building initiatives are part of the Five-Year Plan for School Attendance: 2023-2028, but it is yet to be determined whether these will also relate to the utilisation of data (TESS, n.d.[66]). Development of the infrastructure to provide this backchannel will also be crucial.

4.4. The importance of leadership

Leadership on school attendance is crucial. At the system level, strong political commitment and clear vision can ensure that reforms aimed at improving attendance are not only launched but also sustained over time. Leadership at the central level can also help co-ordinate and align stakeholders and mobilise resources. In Ireland, several consecutive Ministers for Education launched initiatives that emphasise school attendance through a series of interventions. The latest example is the then Minister McEntee who continued to make school attendance her policy priority during her mandate, which demonstrates not only political support but also financial support of the issue. Moving forward, it will be important to support school leadership to embed a culture of attendance.

4.4.1. Supporting school leadership to embed a culture of attendance

To achieve sustained improvements in school attendance, Ireland could further strengthen the role of school leaders as the bridge between system-level initiatives and everyday school practices. While significant national investment has been made through measures such as the national attendance campaign and the work of Educational Welfare Officers, these efforts are most effective when translated into consistent routines, expectations and priorities within schools. Fluctuating response rates to Annual Attendance Reports suggest that deeper and more sustained engagement at school level is needed. A clearer policy focus on empowering and supporting school leaders to champion attendance, through guidance, accountability and professional learning, could help embed a positive attendance culture across schools.