Truancy, you’ll know it’s a problem just by cruising the city and checking how many kids are out on the streets during school hours. And after a bright starts in 1999, the truancy officers seem to have fades from any prominence. But they’re back, or they should be. Their main problem has been transportation, and today Minister of Education Patrick Faber donated 10 motorcycles to the Truancy Unit. Dale Anthony, the Manager of the Truancy Unit in the Ministry of Education told us how the “beng-hookey” bikes will be used.
Dale Anthony, Manager – Truancy Unit
“In terms of going to school and taking up the relevant information that is needed from the school in order for them to know who are the truants and who are not and also for us to keep the information here as data, these officers will get on these cycles and they will be able to go to the different schools in a quicker way, they won’t be able to take money out of their pockets to be catching the bus and taxi that they use to do. So they will be able to get to schools quicker, they will be able to do their job in a more efficient way, in terms of also probably when doing patrols, because we do patrols, when they do patrols they will be able to go out there and see the areas that are congested with kids and that kind of things. So these motorcycles are definitely a plus to the unit.
This will definitely not stop truancy in its track but it will help in order for us, because remember one of the things we need to do is to find the reason why these kids are not in school and the only way we can do so is to go on home visits like you said.”
The ten motorcycles are valued at a total of thirty thousand dollars. While five will be assigned to the Belize District, mainly Belize City, the other five bikes will be distributed to the districts.
