By Vanessa Braithwaite

THE availability of only two welfare officers operating throughout the entire Region 10, one in Linden and one in Kwakwani, has been deemed an issue of concern and a key factor in the social lapses the education system faces in the region. There have been reports about a notable degree of truancy in the region, stemming from the inability of parents to afford the necessary provisions to have their children attend school regularly. Parents are faced with the challenges of affording school uniforms, snacks, books and daily transportation costs.
Councillor Gordon Callender told members of the Regional Democratic Council’s (RDC) statutory meeting on Thursday that he has noticed several school-aged children not attending school on the Wismar shore and it has been assumed that their parents cannot afford to send them.
“School reopened Monday and they still have children running ‘wild, wild’,” Councillor Callender observed.
Meanwhile, Councillor Charles Sampson said that he had observed children not going to school in certain communities because of their cultural and religious beliefs.
“Regardless of cultural heritage and beliefs, children are children and they have to go to school… if you don’t want them to go to school to mix with the ordinary folks in the community then find some mechanism to teach them at home,” said the councillor.
The councillors also stressed that this matter needs to be addressed earliest and one of the solutions is to increase the number of welfare officers attached to the region.
“We’ve been clamouring and asking for welfare officers, we got far, far places to visit, when officers go one place they want a day rest from the visit when they finish, so we need to take some of these challenges at a high level to get more welfare officers.”
SKULKING
While there have been reports of truancy in the region, deliberate skulking on the part of students, especially at the secondary level, has also been noted.
Councillor Sampson said that schools throughout the region should report skulking to the relevant authorities and mechanisms should be put in place to prevent this.
“This is an issue that you have to make sure that when a child is present, they are present all day… ah see a lot of situations right at Wismar Hill School where children when they have break they don’t go back and the teachers didn’t know,” he revealed.
Other factors that were cited include the porous school fences, making it easy for the children to escape and the unavailability of daytime security guards.
“The biggest part of our budget goes to education and it is unfair that we spending all that money and our children are not benefiting.”
The Regional Education office has been criticised for not dealing with the situation seriously and putting systems in place to decrease the level of truancy in the Region.
It has been recommended that a listing from various communities be provided with the number of children who are not attending school regularly or not at all so that First Lady Sandra Granger through her office can provide them with the means to do so.
Chairman of the Education Committee, Councillor Denise Belgrave recommended that teachers graduating from the University of Guyana with a degree in Social Work should serve the schools as welfare officers, instead of teachers, so that the region will have an adequate number of officers to deal with the wide array of social issues facing the education system.