The Ministry of Education commissioned an external review to discover how the failure happened and to tighten procedures to ensure the failures did not happen again. In a statement, the Papatoetoe South School Board said they were shocked and saddened the ministry had not reported the children’s extended absence to police. Issues identified in failure to report disappearanceMinistry documents showed the system failed to require the school to submit a non-enrolment notification. Deputy secretary Helen Hurst said the ministry worked internally to analyse how the school attendance systems had operated in Minu and Yuna’s case. Hurst said the ministry had done further analysis of its systems, and commissioned an external review of how attendance systems and processes operated in the case of Minu and Yuna.

Source: New Zealand Herald February 24, 2026 01:40 UTC