For his first for Vaudois students, Joker leave worked rather well during the 2024-2025 school year. Indeed, 42,691 of the 96,000 (around 44%) schoolchildren of the canton benefited from this possibility of missing up to three days of lessons without justification, the department of education announced on Friday. This leave will therefore have represented 7% of all absences during the year. According to the canton, these first figures could demonstrate that Joker leave “contributes to the decrease in absence rates for health reasons, as well as requests for individual leave for personal reasons”.
Some dates were particularly targeted by students and their parents. Fridays before the holidays as well as the past few weeks before the summer, in particular. The record was reached the day before the Pentecost weekend, with 3908 queries. “On average, this represents a little less than a joker leave by class that day,” said the department. The latter now plans to carry out a qualitative analysis of Joker leave, by consulting the establishments and the parents of students. Possible adjustments could get out of it.
