The government is launching a marketing campaign to lift the country's poor record of attendance at school.

"Every school day is a big day" is the tagline of the marketing effort which will be accompanied by the distribution of information packs for schools to help them get their message out to their local communities.

In June, the government announced its targets for a dramatic improvement in school attendance.

School attendance has been declining since 2015. At present, almost half of the country's tamariki do not regularly attend school.

"Regular attendance" is defined as missing none or one day of school a fortnight.

That trend has been further accelerated by Covid-19. Only two in five pupils attend regularly - or just 40 percent.

A Ministry of Education survey found that only five per cent of New Zealanders considered attendance a top-of-mind issue.

Jan Tinetti Photo: RNZ / Dan Cook.

"There are no quick fixes to attendance especially where there is chronic non-attendance," says Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti.

Chronic non-attendance means a child attended 70 per cent or less of the time in a fortnight.

"There can be many barriers but we are working with schools to help turn our school attendance rates around," says Tinetti.

The government's goal is to achieve an attendance rate of 75 per cent by 2026.

"I want to see the number of kids attending school regularly increased from 59.7 per cent in 2021 to 70 per cent in 2024 and 75 per cent in 2026."

Tinetti says it's important parents, teachers, students and communities worked together to try and solve the problems.

There's a legal requirement for parents to send their children to school, but the campaign seeks to be positive about why children are required to be there, Tinetti told Checkpoint.

She says it's "critically important" that parents send their children to school and the campaign will highlight all the great things that happen during the school day.

Focus groups indicated that five to 10 year olds, the age group with the highest absences, are staying at home with parents instead of turning up at school, she says.

Each school and each community will know what the answers are for their region, that can include things like having someone pick up the child from home to ensure they get to school, says Tinetti.

Secondary Principals' Association president and Papatoetoe High School principal Vaughan Couillaut agrees that attendance is at an all-time low due to Covid-19.

"If someone follows the public health advice at the moment and isolates at home when they've got Covid for a week, then by doing that you can't meet the attending regularly requirement."

Couillaut says truancy and attendance are two separate things.

"Truancy is the active disengagement and I'm not coming to school, whereas attendance is about there's some reason why I can't come to school."

Earlier this year, the government announced it's committing $88 million to initiatives aimed at getting students to attend school regularly.

Footage for the TV, radio and newspaper campaign which has begun today was filmed at nine schools across New Zealand.

-RNZ.