Concern has recently been voiced regarding absenteeism in Quebec schools as the records reveal that a growing number of students are not showing up for schools. According to La Presse , the French language on-line newspaper, the Ministry of Education statistics reveal that in the first week of April, 9.5 per cent of students in public elementary and secondary schools were absent — almost as many as during the pandemic.
In an interview with CTV News, Katherine Korakakis, president of the English Parents’ Committee Association, told the following to CTV News, “The fact that children are missing school goes together with motivation, goes together with mental health issues,” In January, the association conducted a survey on students’ well-being and quality of life and received responses from 14,000 parents, and according to the president, “The top things seen were motivation and mental health being a very key factor that parents were identifying’.
The Public health experts who worked on the survey calculated what they called “quality of life.” A score of 100 is considered “excellent” but the average score for Quebec students was just 64 per cent, which Katherine believes is what’s leading to the rise in absenteeism.
“There needs to be a concerted effort from all educational stakeholders to address this serious rise in mental health issues with children,” she said.
Are the reasons proffered bona-fide, or is the larger picture completely missed or merely skimmed over?
In an email to CTV News, the Lester B. Pearson School Board said it is “very aware of the issue of student absenteeism and we are taking a proactive approach in terms of addressing the issue. In the school board’s commitment to success plan, one of our objectives is to reduce these absences by 10 per cent by the 2026-2027 school year. This is part of our plan to improve effectiveness at meeting the academic needs of diverse learners.”
In 2021 a published study of Greater Toronto schools revealed an alarming 600 per cent increase in extreme absenteeism–when students are absent for more than 50 per cent of classes.
Sheryl Boswell, Executive Director of the advocacy group, Youth Mental Health Canada states that. ” It’s really important to understand that this is not an issue of truancy . “Kids who do not want to go to school are actually suffering with a mental disability”. To this end she has produced and published in January 2024 what she claims is the first comprehensive guidebook on the topic called “Supporting Students with School Phobia : A guidebook for Families and Schools.
Psychologists have termed the spiralling number of students who are chronically missing from school as suffering from “school refusal behavior” or “school avoidance”.
There is no national public data on the number of kids suffering from school avoidance , said Dr. Maria Rogers , an Ottawa psychologist and Canada Research Chair in Child and Youth Mental Health at Carleton University . Anxiety Canada , a registered charity and non-profit organization created to support access to proven resources for anxiety, estimates that about 25% of youth will engage in school refusal behaviour during their schooling years.
Again a conundrum emerges as we are presented with the same game bearing a different name. Is mental illness truly to blame?
What do the psychiatrists have to say?
Korakakis says efforts need to be made now for vulnerable students. “The educational stakeholders have to come together and it has to be led by the government to say, ‘We prioritize this, this is an issue, let’s do something about it,'” she said.
However, the Education Minister Bernard Drainville when asked about the increase in student absenteeism, said that ultimately it’s up to parents to decide if children are well enough to be in class.
Are adults over medicalising and over-analyzing normal childhood problems? The boundaries between being anxious and having anxiety are becoming increasingly blurred, and many parents may inadvertently worsen their child’s anxiety by keeping them at home.
Additionally, there has also been a marked change in parental attitudes, with some believing that attendance at school is optional. There are others who are all too willing to let the child dictate his/ her attendance rather than the other way around.
Conclusively, at the end of the day it takes a village to raise a child, and if the village is struggling, that impacts the wellness of the whole community.
Aleuta continua– The struggle continues.
