KINGSTON, Jamaica — Of the approximately 120,000 primary and high school students who were said to be unaccounted for during the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 87,000 have been re-engaged in the education system.

This was revealed on Tuesday by the Minister of Education, Fayval Williams, during her contribution to the 2022/23 Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives.

“Using a weekly average of 32,554 unaccounted-for-students over the period February 14 to April 1, shows that we have been able to re-engage approximately 87,446 of the 120,000 students we had indicated were not accounted for during the pandemic,” Williams shared.

She said the Ministry of Education and Youth is committed to finding all students.

“Our deans of discipline and our guidance officers will specifically redouble their efforts. We also call on all Jamaicans; you know these children in your communities that are not attending school. Call us at 211,” Williams said.

She disclosed that the ministry’s internal officers will visit homes to understand the issues why the children are not in school.

“Together with our Child Protection and Family Services Agency and with the help of other sister ministries, we commit to doing all we can to help the situations in the homes and get all our students in school and learning again.”

The ‘missing students’ were not showing up online or using any of the other modalities provided for their education during from the time classes were shuttered in March 2020.

Williams said that prior to returning students to full face-to-face last month, the ministry launched its ‘Yard-to-Yard Find the Child Initiative’ which engaged 108 social workers and 580 HOPE students at a cost of $103 million for a period of three months.

Additionally, 928 guidance counsellors and 177 deans of discipline were also actively involved in locating the students.