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.

Some of the parents who are neglectful of their children’s education may be struggling with their own demons, but many are not, and their detachment and indifference is cruel and incomprehensible and it should be confronted in a way that gives their child what is now a basic human right — access to an education. There are many charges today that we live in a nanny state, that political correctness means the tail is wagging the dog but, in this instance, firm, uncompromising action is justified. After all, knowingly allowing a parent to deny a child an education is a dreadful betrayal.