We need truancy officers

By Garth Rattray

Recently, my mother, a retired teacher who migrated to the United States many years ago, and I were driving along Waterloo Road. As soon as we approached the traffic light by Devon House, she exclaimed, "Don't they have truancy officers anymore?"

She was appalled at something we have had to accept as the norm in our modern-day Jamaican urban society - the sight of a diminutive waif of a boy armed with a worn and broken sham of a windshield squeegee, approaching the driver's side of the vehicle on a mission of mendicancy.

It was impossible for the little fellow to reach the windshield of any vehicle, let alone that of the 4x4 pickup (a Toyota Hilux Vigo), so he was obviously risking life and limb and dangerously snaking his way between moving vehicles on a very busy thoroughfare on a school day for the sole purpose of begging for money.

My mother went on to recall that truancy officers would check at schools for a list of absentee children and scour the streets for them (with or without a list). She revisited an era when order and discipline consistently governed society and demanded responsibility and accountability from parents and guardians.

Unheard-of concept

We no longer have truancy officers. And, my sampling of teachers and administrators in primary and secondary educational institutions garnered responses ranging from, "Truant officers? I'll check on that" to "I've never seen one!" and "I've never heard of those!"

As recently as August last year, then Minister of Education Andrew Holness was so concerned that "a growing number of school-age children" were being kept out of school that he contemplated the use of truancy officers. A Jamaica Observer article reported that Mr Holness related that, until now, the Ministry of Education responded to reports of absenteeism from schools at a "relatively informal and individual level".

Essentially, Mr Holness went on to explain that, if the statistics to be gathered in the new school year concluded that truancy was "significant and growing", the ministry would be more serious in its approach to absenteeism and reintroduce truancy officers to apply the law regarding the sending of children to school.

Truancy is a serious worldwide problem and various researchers have found a definite link between it and crime. Truants are more likely to get involved in drug use (from tobacco smoking and alcohol to marijuana and cocaine), crime (from simple larceny and burglary to robbery, rape and murder), and are themselves at high risk at becoming the victims of all of the above crimes.

Difficult to combat

In our society where poverty, indiscipline, unregulated communities and self-governing enclaves are common, truancy will be extremely difficult to combat. Some inner-city schools report that police personnel sometimes check on absentee children and sometimes the dons monitor special cases they have undertaken to educate. However, the Government has yet to institute methods of reducing absenteeism in a serious way.

Teachers have explained to me that in spite of our safety-net programmes, extreme poverty plays a role as some parents cannot afford to send their ragged and hungry children to school.

Some parents send their children out on the streets to earn for themselves and the family. And, other parents have their children accompany them when they sell in various places. Fridays are well known for absenteeism and the shift system plays havoc with attempts at monitoring attendance - approximately 10 per cent of our public education institutions are still on the shift system.

Whether or not the Ministry of Education gets around to gathering statistics on absenteeism, given the evident presence of individual, and groups of, children roaming idly on our streets, loitering around shopping malls, getting involved in a criminal lifestyle and growing up undereducated and functionally illiterate, we need truancy officers sooner than later.

Garth A. Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and garthrattray@gmail.com.