Eight Thousand Individuals
The Government is reported to be planning another push to reduce truancy. They have already spent £960 million on a wide variety of measures and they have introduced some of the most punitive measures since the creation of Truant Schools in the late 1800s. In those days, the kiddy-catchers cleared the streets of errant children and packed them off to Industrial Schools and Reformatories if they failed to attend the Truant Schools. Almost overnight, streets were emptied of children on the loose.
In recent months a number of parents have been sent to prison for failing to get their children to attend school, and there are plans to be even more punitive to failing mothers and fathers.
There are good arguments for being fierce. If a child is not at school it is being deprived of its main opportunity for basic education. Failure to grasp this chance will mean a working career with reduced scope, more limited leisure activities, inability to help the next generation with home-work - or the need to catch up at a later date.
What is more, children who are not at school are much more likely to get involved in trouble – glue-sniffing, drinking alcohol or taking drugs, together with further offending to finance these activities. Truancy can be the beginning of a downward spiral of problems.
Nonetheless, we doubt whether this policy will work, and we think there is a lot more fundamental thinking to be done. If 8,000 children are missing school every day, it amounts to a significant vote of no confidence on the part of the truants in the education system as it stands. For those who are succeeding, schooling may be satisfactory, but for those who truant, attendance must be considered less rewarding, fulfilling or enjoyable than sleeping in at home, wandering the streets or offending, despite the pressures the truants and their families face from a variety of agencies encouraging them to attend. They clearly do not see schooling as a real opportunity to learn.
If so, forcing them to attend school will not make them learn. They will not want to co-operate. They will have shut their ears. They will probably feel varying mixtures of guilt, anger, boredom and frustration. They will present problems to their teachers and be a distraction to their fellow pupils. Their decision to truant may well have fortuitously been in the interests of others.
If the truants are to learn, they will first need to be motivated to do so. They will need to understand why they need to learn. Once motivated, they will take opportunities. Until then, teachers are wasting their time.
In motivating such children, it is important not simply to think of them statistically as a bunch of 8,000 truants who need to be nailed down. Each of them will have had his or her own reasons for truancy – problems at home, abuse, bullying at school, failure, being shown up, learning difficulties, lack of educational support at home – and for each one, people will need to listen, understand, discuss, work out solutions, encourage and enthuse. That cannot be done easily in a busy school where the truants have simply been forced to attend.
There is, of course, the argument that they need to be kept out of trouble, partly in their own interests and partly in the interests of the wider community and the potential victims of their crime. This argument may provide grounds for some other form of occupation for truants, and that occupation may consist, in part at least, of educational activities and attempts to help them to value education.
But if the prevention of offending is the primary purpose of such a type of occupation, let us be honest about its purpose. Then, everyone will know where they stand. Pretending that schooling will have something to offer to someone who does not want to be there is eyewash. Simply forcing children to be at school will achieve very little indeed and is likely to be counterproductive.
Are you plagued by Spam? Our production manager has found a service which is absolutely fantastic - it removes 100% of spam from your mailbox before it arrives at your computer - you never see it. It really works and makes e-mail a pleasure again. Best of all, it is free for a year. Try SpamJab - it's brilliant! (This is not a paid advert)
SEARCH THIS ISSUE OF THE WEBMAG HERE
