Absenteeism still rampant in schools

School administrations have urged the Ministry of Education and Youth to find a solution to the phenomenon of absenteeism among pupils before and after the Eid holidays.

Although many school administrations warn pupils not to extend the holiday before or after the specified Eid holidays, more than 50 per cent of pupils continue to do so.

This has been prevalent each Eid holiday over many years although many school administrations deduct up to five marks from the grades of pupils who stay away from school, said Aisha Saif, Director of Al Manar government school.

In order to prevent absenteeism, school administrations schedule tests just before or after these holidays and penalise offenders.

In many cases, she said, schools had failed to limit absenteeism, in some cases because of genuine circumstances and in others because of pupil indiscipline.

Hanadi Nasser Al Suweidi, a geology teacher in Al Zahra government school in Sharjah, has urged the ministry to come up with a solution to this problem, with half or more of the pupil population staying away before and after Eid holidays.

"Such a solution should take into consideration the social and religious circumstances attached to the Eid Al Adha and Eid Al Fitr holidays and festivities," she stressed as she believes that the mass absenteeism is linked to these social and religious requirements.

Absenteeism, she noted, is also due to inconvenient scheduling of tests and exams.

Assessment exams should be scheduled in such a way so as to allow pupils to enjoy the Eid holiday and for their parents to prepare for Eid festivities, she explained.

She said that in many schools under Sharjah Educational Zone the rate of absenteeism among pupils was more than 50 per cent last Wednesday just before the Eid Al Adha holidays, a phenomenon noticed just before the Eid Al Fitr holiday.

Those schools had not schedule assessment tests last Wednesday so pupils decided to absent themselves in order to prepare for Eid festivities.

"In most classes in our school, there were tests on Wednesday so the absence rate was normal."

As the Zone leaves it to school administrations to prepare timetables for assessment tests, she noted that many schools scheduled these tests just before the Eid Al Adha holiday, leaving families with little preparation time for Eid.

"Since pupils have tests, many families had no time for shopping until the night of the first day of Eid. Parents and children were unable to shop for Eid," she noted.

"When I talked to my pupils on Wednesday, most of them had not yet prepared for Eid. We started the assessment tests ten days before the Eid holiday," she stated.

She pointed out that many parents had gone on Haj and their children were left in the custody of their relatives who had extra preparations to make. Some pupils celebrate the return of their parents from Haj after the Eid holiday.

Apart from all this, there was not enough material to test the children on. "It was just the third week after the mid year vacation and, in my case, geology is only one class a week," she explained.

Hanadi believes that the exams should have been delayed by until at least a week after the Eid Al Adha holiday to give pupils time to study.

"Teachers have been calling on school administrations to take all this into consideration when preparing time tables for tests. I have worked in three schools. In a certain school, there were about four pupils in each class the day before an Eid holiday, and we had to ask the girls to go back home," she said.

Al Zahra school has insisted on pupils returning to school on Wednesday after the Eid holidays. If they don't, two marks will be deducted from their grades for conduct. However, they will not be penalised if they don't turn up on Tuesday, she said.

Mona Jawad, a social worker at Ruqaiya school, agrees with Hanadi that certain factors should be considered when preparing timetables for tests.

She proposed a reward be given to pupils who do not absent themselves before and after the Eid holidays.

"Official warnings sent by school administrations to parents and the penalty of deduction of marks has not solved the problem. Pupils who come to school before and after the official Eid holiday should be rewarded, and special entertainment programmes should be prepared to encourage them to come to school," she suggested.

She said that some school administrations gave their students a half day last Wednesday, while others granted a half day last Tuesday and allowed the children to stay away on Wednesday.

"Our school issued an official warning to parents that their children must not extend the official Eid holiday, either before or after. They were warned that five marks would be deducted from the conduct grades if they failed to comply with the rules.

A similar warning was issued just before the Eid Al Fitr holiday. Pupils who broke the rules and failed to submit justification for their absence had two marks deducted from their conduct grades. Such pupils formed 20 per cent of the absentees, she noted.

Some expatriate pupil go out of the country with their parents and so they extend the holiday.

She noted that in Saudi Arabia, for example, the Eid Al Adha and Eid Al Fitr holidays are up to ten days, taking into consideration the religious festivities and social requirements of the two occasions.

The Ajman University for Science and Technology has extended the Eid holidays and students will resume classes next Saturday, said an official source from the university.

This takes into consideration the fact that Haj is a necessary part of Eid Al Adha.