A new government push to get children into schools comes at least four years too late, commentators have warned.
Welcoming the back-to-school ad campaign, Toby Young—General Secretary of the Free Speech Union and Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Sceptic (formerly Lockdown Sceptics)—told The European Conservative:
For those of us who criticised the government for closing schools during the pandemic, this is a welcome change. The pity is it’s taken almost four years for the government to issue the correct advice.
During lockdown, the British government—led by Public Health England—became the country’s biggest advertiser, with some advertising campaigns effectively branding those who chose to spend time with their out-of-home loved ones as murderers. Schools were also forced to shut during much of this time, a decision which campaigners say the official COVID Inquiry is now failing to properly scrutinise.
Just a few years on, ministers have launched what has been described as a “nationwide marketing campaign” to push their newfound view that “moments matter, attendance counts.” They say that children should no longer be kept at home if they have sore throats or runny noses, with advice reading:
We are aware that the COVID pandemic may have caused some parents to feel less confident with assessing whether their child is well enough to be in school so we have laid out some information which we hope you will find helpful. There is wide agreement among health professionals and educational professionals that school attendance is vital to the life chances of children and young people. Being in school improves health, wellbeing and socialisation throughout the life course. The greatest benefits come from children and young people attending school regularly.
It is now fairly widely recognised, though perhaps not officially accepted, that the government’s failure to grasp the “vital” importance of school attendance during the pandemic is damaging current levels of participation. National absence rates of around 7.6% are far higher than the pre-pandemic levels of between 4 and 5%.
The latest drive to increase attendance is in stark contrast to government ‘stay home’ messaging of recent years. This is understood to have caused unsocialised children to become unsettled when dropped off at school.
A quick search on British job listings websites pulls up a significant number of new ‘school attendance officer’ vacancies opened in the past week or so, as pupils returned—or, in too many cases, did not return—to class.
Truancy has become so bad that officials fear it could result in a future crimewave, with up to 9,000 more young offenders, including 2,000 violent criminals, expected to be on the streets by 2027 due to present-day school absences.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has described tackling low attendance as her “number one priority,” but Robert Taylor, a columnist at The Daily Telegraph, added that “the government can hardly complain about parents not sending their kids to school. You reap what you sow.”
