WESTERN BUREAU:

Poverty and many parents placing little value on education, resulting in detrimental effects for children, are the main contributors to absenteeism in primary schools.

This is according to Professor Zellyne Jennings-Craig, head of the Department of Educational Studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus.

"One of the parents don't have work, they don't have money, they can't give the children lunch money or even breakfast to go to school, so they keep them away," Jennings-Craig said as she painted a picture of the kind of poverty that befalls many parents.

She was addressing a recent appreciation function held in Montego Bay, St James, for education officers.

School dropouts

Jennings-Craig, though expressing surprise that parents did not seem to realise the importance of education said a number of parents were youngsters who themselves dropped out of schools.

Jennings-Craig added that the lack of importance attached to education is seen in how parents will spend the money from the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education on fancy hairdos or designer clothes for themselves, rather than use it to send the children to school.