The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

EDUCATION director Marcellus Taylor revealed discussions are ongoing to deal with the issue of truancy in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He acknowledged that this was an issue even before the pandemic, but said he suspects this has become more of a problem due to the current climate.

“I would suspect during COVID because of the situation you have more cases of it (truancy),” he told reporters this week.

“Teachers, school administrators, they make these calls when those (issues) present themselves. I can’t tell you the number of cases because it’s normally dealt with at the level of the school. It’s kind of a routine thing when students are not showing up that teachers, school administrators, reach out to find out why they are not attending the school and then try to make whatever intervention they can.

“So, what we have done with the task force is to take it at a slightly higher level to say to the Department of Social Services and others that we know that this problem is more than what was normally pertaining before COVID and so we want more or less like everyone to be looking out at this issue with particularly keen eyes,” he explained.

“We are continuing to try to see how we could address it and you know call on the public to support in that activity you see because we only have a certain reach and certain ability to bring people in. We open the doors. We make out the call. Sometimes we go out and intervene - our primary work is to teach.

“But there are a lot of people in communities who know these children. That’s part of the reason why the task force reached out also to church leaders who are in communities who have parishioners and who are able also to engage and motivate them to return to school.”

Asked what he meant by “higher level”, he explained: “The higher level is sensitisation at the policy level - minister to minister. The higher level is from the leaders of the technical level - the director of social services, the director of education. Higher level than that would ordinarily pertain - that is to say the teacher just calling into the school welfare section.

“So when it moves to the higher level, then the whole issue of resources...if some particular strategy is needed then those issues are now addressed because you’re talking about doing something that would not normally happen. You’re talking about a problem that was bigger than it was historically and so you may need more resources. You may need to create more of a prioritising of that issue and so therefore that’s why it was evaluated to that higher level.”

He said the Ministry of Education is working with attendance officers, people whose job it is to find and identify children who are not in school.

“We are working with them now. They’re being connected to the LMS. They’re using tablets to be able to trace students as they go out on the streets so they could know exactly who’s missing. Where to go and look for them. Which areas to look when they find them to be able to say they’ve identified that child to make sure. These kinds of strategies are what we are looking at,” he told reporters.