Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information, Senator Marlon Morgan, is calling on school leaders to spearhead efforts to identify and re-engage students who have fallen out of the education system.
Senator Morgan said principals, teachers and other education stakeholders must work closely with parents, churches, community leaders and school boards to encourage students to return to school and complete their education.
Addressing the Ministry’s Region One Back-to-School Conference at the Grand Palladium Resort in Hanover on Tuesday (July 21), he said schools remain one of the safest places for children and should serve as a refuge from many of the challenges they face in their communities.
“We know that the school is a safe space for our children…; it is important for us as school leaders to not just sit on our laurels but be as active as we can be in reaching out to our students and getting them back into the teaching and learning environment, because there are so many undesirables lurking in their communities,” he said.
Senator Morgan noted that some students never returned to school following the COVID-19 pandemic and Hurricane Melissa, having instead entered the workforce.
However, he cautioned that while earning an income at a young age may appear attractive, leaving school prematurely could significantly limit future opportunities.
“There are some persons who didn’t show up back at school after COVID…; they got a job and say, ‘Boy, this is good. I’m not going to need school again’. You need to go to great lengths, work with all the stakeholders, meaning community leaders, churches, the pastors, you name it… seek out these parents, seek out these households, seek out these students and impress upon them the very critical importance of coming back to school,” he urged.
Senator Morgan emphasised that adults have a collective responsibility to guide young people towards making decisions that will improve their long-term prospects.
“We cannot, as a sector, afford for our young people to be making less than prudent, less than sensible decisions in the here and now… . We as the adults in the room… have to go to great lengths to actively seek them out,” he said.
Senator Morgan also encouraged school leaders to embrace a collaborative approach to advocacy, noting that engaging key stakeholders would produce more meaningful and lasting results.
“If you go alone, you may go faster, but if you go together, meaning if you have your key stakeholders on board and you all go together, you are likely to go farther,” he said.
The three-day Region One Back-to-School Conference was held from July 20 to 22 under the theme ‘Shaping the Future of Education through Resilience and Innovation’.
It brought together principals, vice-principals, education officers and other stakeholders to prepare for the start of the 2026/27 academic year.
