CORAL SPRING, Trelawny — Education Minister Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon has floated the possibility of legal action being added to the toolkit in the fight against truancy.

According to Morris Dixon, of particular concern is business places which entertain children during school hours.

“I’ve started to talk to some of our mayors, because we’re going to have to go into these business establishments and take our children out and send them to school. We have to also consider whether or not there are charges, because we are assisting with the truancy of minors. There are lots of conversations we have to have; and I don’t think we’ve been having those conversations in the national sphere,” said Morris Dixon on Tuesday, during the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information Region Six Principals’ Retreat at Ocean Coral Spring in Trelawny.

She added that discussions have already started with mayors as the Government explores ways to address the issue.

Morris Dixon underscored that the problem has become increasingly concerning, especially in St Catherine, where there have been widespread reports of absenteeism.

“What we’ve noticed … and we’ve been tracking a lot — is truancy, and children not returning after the hurricane, or just generally. In this region [six], I get people calling me to talk about children at food establishments throughout the day and not at school. They’re all over the road and not at school. It is a conversation we have to have about what parents are doing and also what business establishments are doing. Because why should a child, in the middle of the day, be at a food establishment? There is no reason for them to be there. We have to have conversations around that,” she said.

Morris Dixon also used the opportunity to urge parents to remain actively involved in their children’s education beyond the Primary Exit Profile (PEP) examinations level, arguing that adolescents require even greater support during their high school years.

“It’s easier at the PEP level because you all know parents get involved in primary school, and then once they go to high school, they say, ‘Bye-bye, you’re big people now’. I always say to parents that your children actually need you more during the teenage years than when they were babies. A lot of our parents think that they’re done once PEP is done, but it is when the work really starts,” she insisted.

Turning to academic performance, the minister argued that too much emphasis is placed on examination outcomes without sufficient consideration of the challenges many students overcome simply to remain in school.

“All they want to see is what are [schools’] PEP results, what are your CSEC (Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate) results but not asking how have you helped children who may not have had any kind of future to even get one CSEC. We have to figure out how we applaud those efforts. I’ve seen so many schools… when I look at the young men and the young girls and know where they’re coming from and know their backgrounds; I know just to get through CSEC, just to get to there and still be in school, how hard that was for the school community to help them to get to there, to actually do even one subject, and to leave as a good citizen. That is progress,” she said.

Morris Dixon appealed to principals to support her call for broader measures of school success, underscoring that institutions should be recognised for the progress made by students who enter secondary school at a disadvantage.

“Please work with me and support me as I make that point to Jamaica, that it can’t just all be about the final results. It’s important, but it’s not everything. There is more,” she said.

“And we have to look at what are you getting. When a school gets a large percentage of its students who are not proficient, how [do] you compare them with someone who gets everybody highly proficient? It’s a question, right? I ask you to support me as I make that point to Jamaica,” she added.