Fuel-Related Absences Must Be Marked ‘Unjustified’ — Even When You Can’t Afford Petrol

by ELV

Prepare. Don’t panic.

I have to say — I admire the consistency.

For the past two years, we’ve watched a masterclass in how to create a crisis in our education system.

Reading levels are dropping while writing isn’t where it should be. International comparisons get pulled out — PISA suddenly becomes dinner table conversation. It’s urgent our kids are failing. The education system is in trouble.

Then comes the solution.

Back to basics with structured approaches, an hour a day, one way every day, a clear and tidy direction about what should be taught and how it should be taught, all wrapped up in a prescription-style curriculum that leaves very little to question.

Almost overnight, the answer is there waiting. Packaged offshore with big money quietly moving behind the scenes. Branded and rolled in from across the ditch like it was always meant to land here.

Never mind the people already doing the work.

Never mind the expertise sitting in our own classrooms.

The same pattern plays out again with assessment and ERO reports. We’re told we need better visibility, clearer data, more accountability — and before long we have tools, expectations, reporting structures all lined up and moving at breakneck speed.

And just like that, the crisis has done its job.

It has made space for the solution that was already waiting.

And then — just to really show the range — we had that moment.

A groundswell of schools. Real people, a collective voice. A real line in the sand around Te Tiriti being removed from the Education Act.

You would think — by the rules we’ve been playing by — that would qualify as a crisis.

National concern.

Sector-wide response.

Clear impact on the future of education in Aotearoa and harm to ākonga Māori.

But no.

Not a crisis.

Just… disgusting.

It’s interesting, isn’t it? What gets to be called a crisis what gets hurried through parliament under urgency.

Most recently, large parts of the country flooded. Understandably schools closed.

Whānau are standing in waterlogged homes their cars written off. Insurance battles beginning before the mud has even dried.

Tamriki displaced.

Parents stretched.

A very real, physical and emotional crisis.

And the response?

Not rest or wraparound support.

But a gentle nudge…

Why not jump on the maths portal?

Because nothing says stability like logging in while your house smells like wet carpet and loss.

And now — the fuel shock sits just in front of us.

A quiet question sitting in homes across the motu: Can we afford to get to school tomorrow?

Let’s zoom out for a second.

In Pakistan, schools closed. Just like that. When fuel pressure hits, the system responds.

In Bangladesh, days shortened, campuses closed — because when the strain shows, you don’t pretend everything is fine.

In Cuba, fuel shortages rolled through everything — transport, power, schooling — until closure wasn’t a decision, it was the only option left.

And then there’s Australia.

Schools are currently still open but camps are being cancelled. Transport costs are climbing. The edges of schooling are quietly being pared back. No one’s calling it a crisis yet, but anyone in a classroom can feel it tightening.

And here?

For our crisis?

We get a plan about attendance.

If a child can’t get to school because there is no fuel —or because their whānau cannot afford the fuel —  or because the road has already been half taken by the last flood —That absence is marked as…unjustified.

Unjustified.

Phase 1 — fuel is expensive, whānau are already stretched, and schools are told to carry on as normal. No extra funding. No staffing shifts. No space to respond differently. Just… keep going.

Phase 2 — fuel tightens further. Staff can’t get in. Whānau can’t get there. The advice?

Prioritise learning.

This isn’t crisis planning.

It assumes learning exists somewhere separate from people’s lives.

Floating above empty petrol tanks.

Drifting above 20km rural roads.

Hovering above flooded bridges and broken cars.

And still — we are told to communicate to whānau that attendance matters.

Of course it matters. We build our entire practice on belonging, on presence, on connection.

But attendance in a crisis is not a mindset. It is not a poster or political reel. It is not something you can will into existence when the pathway to school is physically and financially disappearing.

You see, when you manufacture a crisis, the solution is already waiting.

When a real one arrives?

You get: Prepare. Don’t panic.

Preparation without support is just responsibility being quietly handed down to principals.

And somewhere in that, there is permission to say help is being given, words like — targeted support, fuel reimbursements, empty gestures that sound good on paper. Higher fuel reimbursements for relief teachers in places that can’t get relievers anyway.

Because out here — in the places that don’t make headlines easily — 

where roads wash out, where fuel prices bite first,

this doesn’t really feel like a ‘plan’.

It feels like being told to keep driving while the fuel light has been on for a very, very long time.