In the past five years, 165 school pools have closed. In the same time period, 39 children have drowned.

Kiwi kids may be losing the ability to swim, with just over a quarter of schools teaching children "adequate" and basic lifesaving skills such as floating, the head of Water Safety New Zealand says.

The culprit is easy to find, according to Jonty Mills – schools closing their swimming pools.

In the past five years, about 165 school pools have closed and about 135 are at risk of closing because of health and safety or maintenance costs, according to Water Safety data.

PHIL WAINWRIGHT There have been 39 fatal drownings of children aged between 5 and 18 since 2013. (File photo)

A report from the New Zealand Council of Educational Research (NZCER), prepared for Water Safety in 2016, found 73 per cent of surveyed primary and secondary schools in state, state-integrated, special and kura kaupapa schools failed to achieve Water Safety's benchmark of eight or more 30-minute lessons a year.

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Decile 9 and 10 schools were significantly less likely to offer adequate aquatic education, and students in secondary school were less likely to have lessons than those in primary schools, it said.

SUPPLIED A study from the University of Otago in 2017 found that, of 48 children aged 6 to 11 from eight schools around Dunedin, 62 per cent were unable to swim 100 metres. (File photo)

The New Zealand Curriculum states: "It is expected that all students will have had opportunities to learn basic aquatics skills by the end of year 6."

However, Mills said more structure was needed in the curriculum to prevent an ever-increasing number of students leaving school without the basic foundations of water safety, particularly as New Zealand welcomed more migrants of all ages.

If students did not learn to swim through school-based or community-based programmes, it left parents having to pay for lessons, which many could not afford, especially if they had more than one child.

SUPPLIED Helensville Primary School children learn to swim during lessons at Parakai Springs. (File photo)

In additions, schools often struggled to organise adequate transport for students to get to community facilities, he said. "The biggest barriers [for learning to swim] are cost, transport and access to facilities.

"That's really concerning. Schools have a lot of funding challenges but, from a drowning perspective, there are more kids coming out without those fundamental skills."

New Zealand's drowning rate is twice that of Australia's, and five times that of the United Kingdom's.

Education Ministry head of infrastructure Kim Shannon said schools were required to provide children in years 1 to 6 with basic aquatic skills, which included swimming and water safety, but it was up to each school to "develop and implement an aquatic education programme".

When asked if there were concerns over the number of school pool closures and threats to further pools, Shannon said schools could choose to close their pools if the costs of using community pools offered greater "value for money than the costs of maintaining a pool on site".

"We encourage schools without pools to collaborate with local community groups and councils, or each other.

KATHERINE SUGARMAN Community Swim in Manukau offers free, professional swimming lessons to primary school children. (File photo)

"In some cases, schools have worked in partnership with local community groups and councils to co-own facilities and redevelop existing pools. We believe this approach provides better value for money both locally and nationally and leads to a better use of existing facilities."

A study from the University of Otago in 2017 found that, of 48 children aged from 6 to 11 in eight schools around Dunedin, 62 per cent were unable to swim 100 metres.

There have been 39 fatal drownings of children between five and 18 since 2013. However, the number dropped from 11 in 2013 to four in 2017.

The NZCER report said 27 per cent of the schools surveyed achieved the acceptable combination of eight or more lessons of at least 30 minutes year. A further 40 per cent gave students eight or more lessons of between 26 and 30 minutes.

"Very few (3 per cent) have stopped providing water-based aquatic education in the past five years."

Water Safety said there may have been little percentage change in schools providing aquatic education since 2001, but the time spent on it had reduced by three to four hours each year.