Such cruel indifference - Denying children an education

IN all but the most exceptional cases, facilitating a child’s non-attendance at school is, like a diet centred on junk food, a form of child abuse and should be treated as such.

To allow a child to miss their once-in-a-lifetime chance of an education is to condemn that person to a meagre existence in society’s twilight, one more likely to be lived in poverty and denial than anything else. It usually condemns the child to a life without choice, a life dependent on the fluctuating kindness of strangers.

Despite that, figures from the National Educational Welfare Board showed that 553 School Attendance Notices were issued to parents last year — an increase from the 537 issued the previous year. This may seem a relatively moderate figure but, because of a lack of resources, it may only be a tip-of-the-iceberg statistic.