NASSAU, The Bahamas (CMC) – Education Minister Glenys Hanna Martin has confirmed that school attendance monitors tasked with getting dropouts back in school recently found a 12-year-old boy living alone in a car.

She said that the child is now in the State’s custody, but declined to provide further details.

“These are the issues that we face. Now we can ignore it and turn the next way but that will come back to haunt us and further hurt us anyhow, because a child should not fall by the wayside,” she told Parliament.

“The one person protected in this life should be the children of this nation,” Hanna Martin told legislators, adding that efforts to re-engage absent students have been “very effective” despite challenges.

She said school attendance rates have risen to 95 per cent for September, adding that people are on the ground every day looking for students.

“So we prioritise getting students off the streets and into the classrooms,” she said, noting improvements in students’ academic performances after intervention initiatives were implemented to deal with learning loss suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A recent survey found that 44 per cent of public school students require urgent learning intervention, and the education minister said “after the third testing we have found that preliminary results revealed that 60 per cent of the students have shown academic growth”.

“Forty per cent accelerated and 20 per cent [were] typical. Fourth graders have shown the greatest accelerated process with 62 per cent growth in reading.

“However, the main number of 44 per cent has only been reduced by four per cent so we still have a target area of 40 per cent that we have to continue to work with. But we are seeing progress; and we’re seeing the students who were at grade level, as a result of our efforts are now above grade level.”

The education minister said 40 per cent are above grade level now and 20 per cent are now at grade level, and that strategies to deal with learning loss include individualised learning, a targeted focus on certain subjects each term, after-school programmes, and the assistance of non-governmental agencies.