Ministry of Education officials have placed a stronger focus on school attendance employing Attendance Officers to assist in combating truancy in the public school system.
Deputy Director of Education Michelle Bowleg told ZNS News, “this week every school in Grand Bahama, was no exception, that we actually had every principal had to turn in, by 1 o’ clock each day, the attendance for the day. And so therefore we have our pulse on it in terms of we know whether or not children are in school and we send this information to headquarters. And so we have an idea of who is in school and who’s not in school. in addition to that we have attendance officers in school and their role really is to, and we have two persons here within our education unit at headquarters, and what they do is they work along with principals to find out. They go out to schools and they find out. If a principal has an issue the principal can call and then they themselves will go out and assist in terms of contacting parents, visiting home, trying to find out exactly why these students are not in school and to give them the support that they need.”
According to the Deputy Director the Attendance Officers will be assisted by Social Services as well as the Royal Bahamas Police Force.
