THE Government has been categorised as wicked and uncaring for contemplating legal action against parents who are still not sending their children to school.

Opposition spokesperson on education, Dr Angela Brown Burke, who lashed out at the Administration in her contribution to the 2022/23 sectoral debate in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, said parents do have a responsibility to ensure that their children are in school, but the dire situations facing parents should not be dismissed.

“How wicked and uncaring can this Government be such that the first thought is about penalising the parent? What about providing guidance and support to these youngsters? What about cushioning the crisis for them and their families and helping them lift their heads above water? What agencies have been asked to intervene to deal with the specific circumstances? The financial position of many families is dire and not to be taken lightly. The involvement of any of these youngsters in illicit activities cannot go unattended, and intervention is required, but that is long before we get to be talking about penal action,” she insisted.

Media reports are that the education ministry is considering dragging the parents of close to 30,000 students to court for keeping their children out of the formal school system. Education Minister Fayval Williams, earlier this week, clarified that the ministry would be taking all steps to find the students before resorting to any legal action.

In April, the education ministry reported that its ‘Yard to Yard’ intervention had not been able to find over 30,000 students who have been missing from school since March 2020 when the novel coronavirus pandemic hit. The initiative was launched after the ministry was unable to track down about 120,000 students, who it said had not logged into online classes or used any of the other approaches which were in place to continue their education throughout the period of the pandemic.

Dr Brown Burke said the Government must examine the reasons behind the absences, such as children being employed to defray the costs of providing for their families.

“What do you say to a student who says he is not registered for any external exams, so why should he go back to school now, when he is actually earning? What do you say to parents who have lost their jobs and their daily hustle can’t put food on the table, but their children are now picking up the slack? Can you imagine how distressed these parents must be?” she reasoned.

The Opposition spokesperson said she would like to see data on the estimated 40 per cent of students who did not do well with remote learning as well as clean data on the performance of the other 60 per cent who the education ministry says have done well. She also said the Opposition wants to see all the data disaggregated by gender.

“We know that our system has underperformed particularly so for our boys are concerned, and we need to know what the reality is. No more half-truths and being economical with the truth, because our boys are in a precarious state, and we must rescue them,” she said.

At the same time, she said the inequality gap in education widened during the pandemic as online learning did not work for the majority of students, with those from vulnerable families benefiting less due to problems with connectivity, devices, and parental or family support. Furthermore, teachers and caregivers to younger children and children with disabilities often found that there were no consistent policy responses to their education and development needs.

Dr Brown Burke stressed that there is now an urgent need for sustainable flexible teacher training opportunities to allow teachers to competently navigate the new landscape.