Student assaults have hit a record high in New Zealand schools, and counsellors say discipline alone won’t fix a mental health problem.
Ministry of Education data released this week shows 11,400 disciplinary cases for physical assaults between students in 2025, the highest since records began in 2000, when there were 4,966.
Assaults now make up 34 percent of all school disciplinary action, overtaking continual disobedience as the leading cause.
Huhana Pene, President of New Zealand Association of Counsellors (NZAC), says the figures back up what school principals are already telling the public.
“Otago Secondary Schools Principals’ Association chair Barbara Agnew said this week that schools ‘higher counselling’. We agree. You can stand a child down for hitting someone, but that doesn’t fix why they hit them.
“Principals are describing kids with mental health issues who don’t know how to handle conflict, and staff who are increasingly on the receiving end of it too. That’s more of an under-resourcing problem, than a discipline problem.”
NZAC is calling on the Ministry of Education to mandate school guidance counsellors in primary and intermediate schools, and to fund secondary schools to a ratio of one counsellor for every 400 students.
“Right now, whether a struggling kid sees a counsellor depends on which school they’re in and what that school can afford. It should depend on need.”
Pene says funding for student support must be tagged to counselling delivery, not folded into general pastoral care budgets where it can be spent elsewhere.
“Every dollar for counselling needs to reach a counsellor. Otherwise, we’re having the same conversation again next year, with a bigger number.”