Dear Editor,

So my grandmother was right when she said, “Labour for learning before you grow old because learning is better than silver and gold. Silver and gold will vanish away, but a good education will never decay.” She stamped this on my heart as a child until I believed, embraced, and practised.

I have always made education my passion. Ever since I graduated from Northern Caribbean University and entered the world of work, I have sought to identify students with ability but not opportunity to propel them to greatness through education. My wife and I are proud and beam with joy when we see those we have helped along their way self-actualised.

This week I was moved by the story circulating in the media of the struggles of young Delano Tucker from rustic Guy’s Hill, St Catherine, who, despite obstacles, has positioned himself for future greatness through education. His is a story of academic excellence, amidst poverty, that is going to catapult him to greatness.

I wish his spirit of grit and determination could help to inspire many youngsters who have not been placing emphasis on education. I am so concerned about how the youth of this generation are squandering and rejecting academic opportunities that are available.

Apart from COVID-19 interruptions in academic delivery, truancy is on the increase. Instead of going to school youngsters are hanging out on the roads, participating in informal commercial activities and joining cliques. Truancy has become the gateway to involvement in the drug trade, scamming, prostitution, and gunmanship.

The question that begs to be asked is: Where are the parents? Are we experiencing juvenile delinquency or parental delinquency, or both? Irresponsible parenting is indeed a sure recipe for disaster because when children lack supervision, encouragement, motivation, and support they are likely to add to the statistics of vagrants.

I think that, in order to tame the truancy crisis, the Government needs to enact and enforce truancy laws with teeth to get children to stay in the classroom up to the age of majority, and parents should be brought to book for enabling their children in wrongs.

Young Tucker could have taken the path of absenteeism and criminality, but rather he conceived ideas that would give long-term solutions to short-term challenges.

Attendance at school must be mandatory and truant officers should hunt down absentees and apply the law to get them in school. We cannot afford to breed ignoramuses. There are some brilliant minds out there going to waste.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste; hence, we need to harvest their potential, train them, discipline them, and expand their horizons so that the nation can have a brighter future.

We can copy ethics and academic practices from the Asians. Look at their scientific, technological, and engineering prowess, all because education was compulsory! Shall we do less in Jamaica, land we love?

So, if we are going to minimise truancy and motivate students, parents will need to superintend their children, and teachers will need to create attractive classrooms where students will want to be part of the adventure. The classroom must not be seen as a prison but a place of interaction, creativity, activity, and participation, where each student can learn at his/her own pace. And the Government should establish punitive measures, such as imposing fines or jail time for the offending parent or child.

Let us get the children back to learning because when the academic light switch is turned on in a student’s life it will give him/her an expansive vista, charcterised by ambition, and they will discover and revel in the emancipatory joy of education.

After all, what’s more liberating than being numerate, literate, and analytical.

Burnett Robinson

blpprob@aol.com