But what about those students who have dropped out of school because they either lack the finance, the equipment, or the parental supervision needed to get their work done?
The dropout rate since the start of the pandemic has been soaring and has manifested itself in children becoming susceptible to the negative influences around them. We brought this concern to the Ministry of Education today during their press conference, and the deputy Chief Education Officer, Dr Neulin Villanueva, explained that they will be looking at those students who haven't returned once classes start next week. But the Minister, Francis Fonseca, added that in terms of those who left school months ago, the work on the ground has already begun.
Dr. Neulin Villanueva - Deputy Chief Education Officer
"The ministry has a Belize management information system with student data, so as soon as school start, we're going to track who returns to school and who are the students who have not. As you saw in the plan, we have an area for student welfare which will be something new, where we plan to engage our school community liaison officers and to use technology to be able to better determine who are those students who are not in the system and to work with our social service partners to get them back in school."
Hon. Francis Fonseca - Minister of Education
"On a practical level on the ground I can tell you that work is underway by individual schools. The chief education officer and I visited certain schools last week on the south side of Belize City and they actively going into the communities trying to find these students, meeting with their families. Maude Williams high school, their doing it at Excelsior, at Sadie Vernon high school, at Gwen Lizaraga high school. Principal, the administrative teams understand the critical importance of this issue, they are actively going into the communities trying to engage with residence and families and to impress upon them the critical importance of having these students return to the classroom. You are absolutely right, it's a critical important issue, we understand and appreciate fully that the ministry of education, the urgency attached to that issue. These are the students we are most concerned about, everything we presented today is about these students, about given them an opportunity to change their lives, improve their lives and to be successful citizens of this country. So, that is our work every single day, not just during a pandemic."
