KEY POINTS:
Under-16-year-olds who get exempted from school will soon be monitored as part of a tough new package of initiatives to tackle the teenage gang problem.
The Social Development Ministry said yesterday integrated case managers were already working with 133 families with youngsters involved in gangs in Counties-Manukau and Otahuhu.
Two short-stay reception centres for teenagers picked up by police have been opened in Hillsborough and Henderson and a third is due to open shortly.
Social Development Minister David Benson-Pope said the campaign would be extended nationally to keep track of all 15-year-olds granted school exemptions.
The number granted exemptions has increased from less than 3000 a year in the late 1990s to about 4000 a year in each of the past five years and now represent 7.5 per cent of all 15-year-olds in schools.
The Education Ministry has issued a directive to schools aiming to halve that number and Mr Benson-Pope said he would soon announce "quite a comprehensive initiative" to keep track of exempted students.
"Schools don't monitor when an exemption is granted. There has never been any co-ordinated oversight," he said at the launch of the ministry's Auckland regional plan.
"We have to have a system where people with an exemption are going to some useful activity."
The new system will build on youth transition services which already help school-leavers into work or further training in 12 areas, with two more due to start soon.
But transition services reach only parts of the North Island and none of the South Island.
The system will be nationwide and is likely to include services targeted at Maoris. At present, 41 per cent of exempted 15-year-olds are Maori, compared with 22 per cent of the school population.
The ministry's Bay of Plenty regional commissioner, Carl Crafar, who has been seconded to run the youth gang strategy from Auckland, said the families already working with his team had been referred by police or Child, Youth and Family Services ).
Ministry social workers and the families were drawing up individual action plans aimed at boosting the young people's educational achievements, training and employment.
The ministry was also funding 22 youth workers to run activities for young people and one-to-one counselling.
The Education Act allows the Secretary of Education to exempt a 15-year-old from attending school on application from the parents where "it is sensible to do so" based on the student's conduct, "educational problems" or "the benefit (if any) the person is likely to get from available schools".
Education Ministry spokesman Iain Butler said the ministry had traditionally accepted recommendations for exemptions from school boards of trustees, approving 94 per cent of applications last year.
Secretary of Education Karen Sewell said in April the proportion was too high and Mr Butler said the aim was "to roughly reduce the exemptions by half".
Tokoroa educator Hugh Clark, who chairs the national body of alternative education providers, said the ministry had been "desperately rejecting exemptions for 15-year-olds" since then.
"They want to engage students till at least 16. One of the ways they are doing that is by making it harder for students to get an exemption," he said.
Exemptions were usually only granted if a training course or an employer was willing to take on a 15-year-old and they were supposed to notify the ministry if the young person dropped out.
YouthLaw solicitor John Hancock said most youngsters aged 13 to 15 who got into trouble with the law were not attending school.
What is Planned
* Action plans for 133 families with children in gangs.
* 22 youth workers in South Auckland.
* Three short-stay centres for young offenders.
* Plans to halve number of 15-year-olds exempted from school and monitor those who are exempted.
