Pupils will not need to present a certificate from the first day of illness, but to clamp down on truancy the government will be recording each day they are not present so that habitual absenteeism can be better identified.
“To serve our purposes, we will be listing the first three days of sickness as absenteeism,” Education Minister Evarist Bartolo told Times of Malta.
“This will not be reported to parents but it will help eliminate this widespread mentality that it’s OK to miss out on three schooldays per month.
“This must end. For the purpose of our statistics, this data will be collected so that when we spot trends of a student habitually missing out on school three days per month, we will take steps.”
This contrasts with what Social Solidarity Minister Michael Farrugia had announced earlier this month, when he declared that every child would need to present a medical certificate upon the first day of illness.
Mr Bartolo said the school attendance policy has been distributed among heads of schools and would be published shortly.
We don’t want to put the good and the bad in the same basket
“I want to make it clear that we do not want to create problems or complications for responsible parents whose children, due to illness or other unexpected circumstances, sometimes need to miss school. We don’t want to put the good and the bad in the same basket.”
The ministry will be focusing its attention on habitual absenteeism and will therefore be asking for rigorous medical certificates from students who are frequently absent. Parents will still have to provide the usual medical certificate on the fourth day of sickness.
“I understand the concern of my colleague Minister Michael Farrugia, when he said that in order to ensure children’s attendance, the government would start asking for medical certificates from the very first day of illness. His aim was to ensure that matters are taken seriously by parents,” he said.
“We have put his ministry’s mind to rest that we will be giving them evidence of instances where parents fulfil their responsibility of sending their children to school as well as instances of frequent absenteeism.”