The best investment that any government can make in young people is to give them the educational tools to enable them to find decent employment and become better people and productive members of society.
Despite having one of the most generous educational systems in Europe, Malta suffers from low achievement levels, with almost a third of students leaving secondary education without any qualifications or skills.
The failure of some students to thrive in the educational system is rarely a sudden event. It is a gradual breakdown of trust between schools, parents and students.
According to research, truancy and un-governability case rates peak at age 15. By this time it is almost impossible to reverse the trend with hundreds of students struggling to find a job and often resorting to substance abuse and delinquency.
Addressing the problem of truancy is therefore a critical factor in the government’s attempt to improve educational achievement levels that remain unacceptably low, despite the fact that Malta spends as much as most other EU countries on public education.
Social Solidarity Minister Michael Farrugia’s plan to tackle truancy, as announced earlier this month, was two-pronged: stricter enforcement of existing regulations and granting incentives to families to encourage their children not to miss school.
Every child, he announced, would have to present a medical certificate upon the first day of illness rather than if they were sick for longer than three days in any one month.
The reaction to that was immediate. Many parents felt the measures were no more than ‘Big Brother’ tactics.
The Malta Union of Teachers described them as “half baked” and the Association of Private Family Doctors called for “more common sense”.
But once again it seemed that in government circles the right hand did not always know what the left was doing.
Education Minister Evarist Bartolo stopped short of expressing open disagreement with the measures announced by his colleague.
“We’re interested in clamping down on absenteeism but through practical solutions,” he said. The implication was clear.
The solutions too started to become clearer yesterday. Mr Bartolo said the government would not be demanding a medical certificate from the first day but would be listing all absent days for its own records. Steps would then be taken if students were identified as missing school habitually.
The new policy should be welcomed by those who had criticised the first, seemingly hasty, announcement.
It is easy to blame truancy on parent neglect even if it is a sad fact that poor parenting skills, low socio-economic status, physical and mental illnesses of parents, and a family history of delinquency are often behind the truancy of many young students.
Other parents seem not to care much about whether their children go to school. In such cases the State needs to protect these pupils’ interests.
School managers have their share of responsibility. Lack of involvement with parents by school heads, inconsistent attendance policies and lack of personalised attention to students by overworked teachers are symptoms of bad management that often leads to unmotivated students.
One positive aspect of this poorly coordinated attempt to address the truancy problem is the commissioning of a study to identify the root causes of why so many students miss school without justification.
It is one step towards breaking the spiral of truancy, illiteracy and unemployment.