The silver bullet for truancy – feed the kids, don’t blame the parents!
Our appalling truancy rates are a major social problem.
Children require education to be able to become their fullest and truest selves.
The reason we as a liberal progressive democracy promote free education is because we understand the enormous boon to our society and culture and economy well educated citizens who have critical thinking skills bring.
The power to think for yourself is the gift of modern society.
A technical and scientific world require workers who can comprehend those skills.
Without education, that path towards agency and future employment is made enormously more difficult.
That is why our recently released truancy rates are so concerning.
We need to urgently focus on solutions rather than play petty political blame games.
Unfortunately that is where the debate has immediately descended to.
National Party Leader Chris Luxon has come out blaming parents and schools for the high level of truancy.
Such broadstroke statements simply don’t help.
We need to understand the many precarious, vulnerable and desperate issues that cause the high truancy rates we are seeing.
We need solutions that help heal those issues so that children come to school and parents encourage it.
Towards that end, name calling and demands to prosecute are nothing more than performance art for reactionary voters.
Poverty, inequality and desperation drive truancy.
If we are serious about reversing these rates, we must make coming to school an immediate material benefit.
Free nutritious school breakfasts and lunches utilising local community and school gardens while providing paid work for local parents, alongside free tampons would do more to lift attendance rates than anything else while building food security and generating immediate goodwill.
That would have more impact than blaming parents and schools and pushing for prosecutions.
We need to be adults here and fight to provide well resourced positive environments that make material difference in the lives of our kids.
We deserve better ideas than punishment.
First published on Waatea News.
Blaming parents for truancy can make things worse for some kids. I know that, and Chris Luxon should too.
Unfortunately, a rejig and refocus of the school system may be too dependant upon Wgtn ideologues, but food for children is a no-brainer. After all, the current PM did, at one time, express concern for child povidy, and her party speech a couple of weeks ago quoted a letter from a teacher thanking Ardern for kids’ school lunches, so I don’t know what’s stopping them. One letter isn’t enough.
Yes!
This is more like it ! An alternative idea rather than just anger at the other lots idea.
We also should have mental health workers in every school and genuinely friendly sort of csw type person at every school who can help families quickly and connect them to organizations that will help get families on track when kids start to fall between the cracks.
A lot of these families giving up on trying to get help because it’s a complicated process so some kind of advocate or community service worker at every school who helps these families and connects them to help (not some uppity judgey nasty govt social worker but like a csw) could be a good idea.
If you’re serious I’d give up on community services workers. They are exactly “uppity judgey nasty govt social worker” types. Worst, all kudos, no accountability. Quasi privatized social service provider system, aka private feifdom
The fact that some people should not be parents is the elephant in the room. Good parents that fall on hard times need support from a caring state.Free condoms and the pill may be a good investment to curb the birth of children to people that cannot look after them . . Food at school is a great idea but what happens when they are not a School .This is aa huge problem in the UK and with 180000 children growing up in poverty is becoming a problem here. In some countries with no welfare children walk for hours to get to school as the parents know it is the only way that they will be supported in old age . Here in NZ parents keep children home if they do not have petrol for the car to get to school and so bring up uneducated children that will not get off the poverty trap.
What about the Parliamentary Food Cart coming every day to collect the recyclables from Bellamys and the like. I like! Then going to the seventh (lucky 7) caller from a school
that has called the special number for that day., and is not entitled to another collection for a week. The first 6 get to be first included if they call the next day and thereafter, and are the third caller, until finally all have had a turn. Now isn’t that scrupulously fair not relying on simple one-off lady luck! When all have had their turn then they go to back of queue for a month or when demand drops.
Otherwise some will never get a turn, simple lottery ideas don’t apply to meeting basic needs. And some sort of lottery system for just about everything as suggested might just seem fairer than the present laisssez unfaire system of New Zealand government and us as people; we’re all liable for criticism in this.
Just wondering how Jan Tinetti’s adds showing what a fun place school is are going in getting kids back into the classroom?
So we do lunches in schools, not breakfasts? Do breakfasts as well. Do a pick up bus. But I am all for consequences if kids don’t attend. Truency officers to visit kids home s and find out from the parents why?
It use to be an offence not to send your kid to school. Is it still? Tell parents that.
We seem to be so bloody afraid to expect things of people, parents, kids. A big part of the problem
Food in schools is a no brainer for NZ. We can feed 45 million people but not our own kids? Crying bloody disgrace. GWs food lottery idea is awesome and I’d like to extend onto the parliamentary food cart idea with a nationwide fleet of food carts, collecting and redistributing food from rich suburbs to poor suburbs. Every able household contributes set quantity of items once a month and prepares the meals (from a selection of set menus) ready to be reheated. A rota system. We could care for our elderly like this too. We could call the fleet Hood Rescue Here and each cart is HRH1, HRH2 etc (like the Jenny shrimp boats in Forest Gump plus it sounds royal). We need to bring our communities together, like they used to be in generations passed, but revamped. Bestest way to do that is through food. It might teach the hard right elite the benefits of humility too. Win / win.
Comments are closed.