School attendance in many countries, particularly in poor and developing countries, is a problematic issue. However, it is not restricted only to developing countries as many affluent countries are affected by it too. Of course there are several factors, singly or in a combination are responsible but a common factor is poverty.
Howard Bodenhorn in an article on the US situation entitled: “Urban Poverty, School Attendance, and Adolescent Labor Force” asserts: “It is well known that children raised in poverty demonstrate lower academic achievement than children raised in affluence. This study extends previous studies in three ways. Firstly, it estimates structural instead of reduced-form models of child academic attainment. Such structural models explicitly account for choices made by children themselves, given choices made by parents and governments. Secondly, it provides an historical insight into the connections between poverty, child choices and educational outcomes. Nearly all extended work considers the late 20th century. This study uses a unique data set from the mid-nineteenth century. And, thirdly, this study documents the choices underlying adolescent labour force participation. Youth in poor households are more likely than affluent youth to be asked to contribute income to the household. The choice to do so is influenced by parental choices and the expected reduction in the child’s later-life wealth attributable to choosing work over additional schooling.”
He adds that the term ‘at-risk’ refers to children who are likely to fail in school or in life because of their life’s social circumstances. It does not appear that any one single factor places a child at-risk. Rather, when more than one factor is present, there is a compounding effect and the likelihood for failure increases significantly. Poverty is considered a major at-risk factor (Leroy & Symes, 2001). Some of the factors related to poverty that may place a child at-risk for academic failure are: very young, single or low educational level parents; unemployment; abuse and neglect; substance abuse; dangerous neighbourhoods; homelessness; mobility; and exposure to inadequate or inappropriate educational experiences.
In the context of Guyana, poverty is definitely a major cause for poor attendance particularly in the rural and hinterland communities and the government in recognition of this has been moving in the direction of addressing it through the implementation of several initiatives and programmes.
The dialectical interconnection between education and poverty is universally recognised, as a key tool in the fight against poverty. However, the poor is finding it difficult to obtain education in many instances and therefore governmental intervention is imperative in order to empower the poor to be able to access education.
Two such interventions by the government, through the Education Ministry in collaboration with other agencies, have been the school feeding programme and the distribution of school uniforms.
The latter is currently in progress for the new school year. According to feedback to the Education Ministry since these programmes were introduced there has been significant improvement in school attendance in the affected communities.
It is therefore abundantly clear that the government is rigidly sticking to its policy which aims at ensuring that every child regardless of his/her socio-economic circumstances has access to education.