Editorial

The two per cent rise in pupils' absenteeism at our schools in the September 2003-March 2004 period over the previous year has rightly worried our educators. Though the increase itself is not alarming, the fact that the overall rate of absence has now reached an average of 10.9 days for boys and 10.1 days for girls is certainly very worrying.

Absenteeism is a phenomenon that throws light on the pupils themselves, their parents and, of course, their schools. The chronic type is the one that is frequently caused by serious medical or family problems that are disrupting the child's life or that of his relatives.

If the problem truly exists, there is frequently little one can do about improving the child's attendance without making the problem even worse. When the child's mind is perturbed by the gloomy atmosphere of a marriage that is breaking up, however, the intervention of a social worker can provide a partial if not an entire remedy.

The major difficulty lies when habitual absence is entirely or mainly unauthorised as the standard remedy of prosecuting the parent or guardian may penalise those persons unjustly in those cases where a child has managed to elude all domestic control. On the other hand, the taking of such a measure might in some cases be the only way in which the parent or guardian can be led back to resume the control they have lost.

Not so surprisingly, it appears that in private schools the rate of absenteeism is much lower, less than half in fact, than in state schools.

The middle-class parents whose offspring compose a great chunk of the population in private schools tend to be very strict on school attendance even if they tend to fuss a little much about any little ailment their children may contract.

It would thus be very useful if the Education Department were to try harder to imbue parents of absenting children in state schools with at least some of the spirit that inspires parents of private school pupils.

There should also be greater determination in the monitoring of children whose absenteeism is likely to be due to medical/psychological reasons.

One cannot rely on every parent to see that long-term or chronic conditions that hamper educational progress are taken seriously in hand, and in such cases the state needs to advise and support.

The Ministry of Education has seen that, above all, the only long-term way it can reduce the present rate of absenteeism is to make both schooling and the schools themselves more attractive to children and their parents. This is a challenge that ought to be taken up in earnest. Some schools do make a good effort in this direction, but others do not.

Current projects like Hilti and Id f'Id aim at increasing literacy rates among pupils, a school refurbishment and maintenance programme, and a project in the making to make the curriculum more appealing to pupils should produce their effect in the coming year or two.

As the Minister of Education has said: "If children do better at school, they are less likely to abscond".