I will start with how and why this inquiry started. As we noted in the introduction of our report, regular school attendance is the foundation of student achievement, and it will be no surprise that research undertaken by the Ministry of Education has found a direct relationship between attendance and achievement. However, there has been an increase in chronically absent students since 2015, and it has doubled to 9 percent between 2016 and 2022. Longstanding challenges with regard to attendance rates have been further impacted by the two years of battling with a global pandemic, COVID-19. Forty percent of students with reduced attendance did not have concerning attendance patterns at the beginning of 2020, prior to COVID-19. 