THERE CONTINUES to be disturbing news on the status of children in Jamaica with the latest report pointing to significant under-enrolment in schools.As is reported in today's Gleaner, a UNICEF report has noted that more than 11,000 Jamaican children between the ages of 12 and 16 were not registered in schools. This is particularly disturbing in the context of the social delinquency and dysfunction being cited in relation to Jamaican males in other fora or studies.
Among the reasons cited for the delinquency rate were financial problems, lack of interest in school and early teenage pregnancy. There is even cause for further alarm when it is noted that most of these unschooled children referred to in the UNICEF report are boys.
The implications for the immediate to long-term future are clear. In the absence of the positive socialisation that schools afford, these children out of the system are the raw material for tomorrow's gangs, criminals and social misfits. This suggests that the cycle of social dysfunction will not be broken anytime soon.
The fact that we have students falling through the cracks should not be a surprise to government agencies that have responsibility for monitoring the education and welfare of the nation's children. But we wonder to what extent they are aware of the number that is outside the formal system and what plans are being developed to rescue them.
The main reasons cited for the delinquency rate suggest that any attempt to fix this problem will have to be implemented on several fronts simultaneously. For those who are under parental guidance but who lack financial support, there are already some government programmes in place about which they might not be aware. Every effort should be to bridge this awareness gap and their ability to make use of existing programmes.
Parents too have a responsibility and must be encouraged or prodded through all necessary means to play their part. For those who have no interest in school for one reason or another, creative approaches will have to be made to break this cycle of ignorance and apathy.
When this report is pitched against the background of a recent statement from the Ministry of Health about the drop in the rate of immunisation among children, it seems to us that the proper monitoring systems of our children are falling apart bit by bit. It is imperative that urgent action be taken to arrest these problems affecting the nation's youth.
We believe that for all its problems, the society still has adequate resources to help more of our children to be developed into useful citizens.
