Teen forges exams certificate as Ministry steps up truancy campaign

Apr 26, 2011 News

With the rate of unemployment among early school leavers skyrocketing, many opt to indulge in illegal activities.
For them the hope of finding a decent job becomes more and more dim.
Just last week, a 19-year-old who was desperately in need of employment, supposedly decided to forge a Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) certificate purporting to show that she had excelled at seven subjects.
She took the forged certificate on April 18, last, to the Metro Office and Computer Supplies, seeking employment. After the certificate was discovered to be forged, the police were summoned and she was arrested.
The teen who told police her name is Oriann Smith was taken to the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court before Magistrate Hazel Octive-Hamilton to answer to the indictable charge of forgery.
The prosecution made no objection for her to be granted her pre-trial liberty, thus Magistrate Octive-Hamilton allowed the accused bail in the sum of $80,000. She will make her second court appearance on May 25.
She might have been afforded the chance to secure an education but might not have been allowed to reach her full potential by unsupportive parents.
Despite relentless efforts by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Human Services to curb school dropout some parents still limit their children the chance to receive a sound education.
In recent times residents of Bartica were in high praise for the work of the official attached to the Ministry of Education for the truants’ cleanup.
During the exercise, several reasons were noted for the children not being in school. Some cited financial difficulties, some said illness and in one case…an eight-year-old was left to take care of a four-year-old relative.
Kaieteur News was made to understand that some parents of the truants are receiving financial assistance from the Public Service Ministry but nevertheless, their children are still not attending school.
“They are collecting de Ministry money and keeping their children home…”
An official from the Education Ministry reported that the truants will be closely monitored to ensure that they not only attend school but that they also do so regularly and punctually.
The Education Ministry is so bent of the policy of “every child receiving an education” that children who are of school age and does not have birth certificates can still be accepted in school.
The truancy campaign which was spearheaded by National Truancy Coordinator, Yvonne Arthur, who stated in an earlier interview that a child can still be enrolled at a school even though the latter does not have a birth certificate.
Arthur explain that while the child is in school, the parent can be advised by a School’s Welfare Officer on the way forward to acquired the legal document.
The last communities to be visited by the truants’ officers from the Education Ministry were Byderado, Dogg Point and Agatash, villages situated on the outskirts of Bartica.
Kaieteur News was made to understand that the Education official decided to target those areas because of the high absenteeism rate of students there.
The officials are calling on head teachers to make available to the School’s Welfare Department, the names of students who regularly absent themselves from school.

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Teen forges exams certificate as Ministry steps up truancy campaign

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