‘The boys are now the breadwinners’ - Hurricane Melissa aftermath pushing students from classrooms into workforce, crime, say administrators
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Seven months after Hurricane Melissa tore through sections of the island, some schools in the hardest-hit communities are reporting a troubling fallout: students, mainly boys, abandoning classrooms for construction sites, farms, supermarkets – and, in some cases, the underground economy.
Administrators say worsening economic hardship has forced many students, particularly those nearing adulthood, to become breadwinners for struggling families still trying to recover from the disaster.
“The roofs are still off some homes, food has to be bought, and many times these boys are the ‘man at the yard’,” Newell High School Vice-Principal Errol Bennett told The Sunday Gleaner.
While many students are officially listed as having returned to school, educators say attendance remains highly irregular, with some pupils appearing for a day or two before disappearing again for weeks at a time as they chase work to support their households.
“The hurricane [affected] so many people who are still out of work, and so many of these children have become income earners for their families, especially those who are 18 or close to 18,” explained Arnaldo Allen, principal of New Forest High School in St Elizabeth. At least six of his students fall into that category, he said.
“You can’t force them to come in when that is the only money coming into the household,” Allen added.
School leaders in St Elizabeth say the crisis is exposing deeper social problems already affecting vulnerable students, including poverty, weak literacy levels, trauma, and the growing attraction of quick money through scamming and illegal farming. The impact, they argue, is being felt most acutely at non-traditional schools, which often lack the resources and support systems available to more established institutions.
The situation is particularly critical at Newell High School, where administrators say the average student enters grade seven reading at the grade-three level. While most students have returned since the hurricane, there are still some 105 pupils whose attendance remains sporadic, with upper-school boys accounting for the majority.
“If we speak about the grade 11 cohort, where we would have been expecting 100 students, we have, like, 85. We make contact with some and get them in for a day or two, but then they are out again because they are the breadwinners,” Bennett explained.
Some parents simply cannot afford to send their children back to school and, as a result, many boys have instead turned to construction work, farming, vending, and other odd jobs to help support households still struggling to rebuild damaged homes and livelihoods, administrators said.
Schools have mounted extensive efforts to keep students engaged, including home visits, welfare checks, and the distribution of care packages. Admittedly, however, administrators say the support has often fallen short against the scale of devastation left behind by the storm.
“Schooling is momentum; every day builds on the other day. They may come to five classes today, but tomorrow they miss 15 and it accumulates. When that child comes in, sometimes he is lost. It’s not just the financial issue but the psychosocial mindset of the child,” said Newell High School Principal Audrey Ellington.
For some fifth-form students, who have spent virtually their entire high-school experience navigating one national crisis after another – from COVID-19 to Hurricane Beryl and now Melissa – educators fear the long-term damage may already be setting in.
But administrators say their greatest concern is that schools are increasingly losing the economic argument to criminal activity.
“My greatest fear, however, is the scamming,” Allen said.
“What scamming does is tell a young man that there is an alternative way to schooling,” concurred Bennett, noting that some students have openly compared the value of an education to the quick profits generated through illegal activity.
Educators say some boys now see years spent struggling through school as less rewarding than the immediate wealth displayed by young men involved in scams, drug trafficking, and other illicit activities.
The Ministry of Education last week reported that up to May 4, some 194 students remained unaccounted for from the approximately 373,000 enrolled in infant, primary, and secondary schools across the island. The figure includes 10 primary-school students and 184 high-school students.
Region Five – comprising St Elizabeth and Manchester – accounts for the largest number of those students, with 138. Thirty-eight students are from Region Four, which includes St James, Hanover and Westmoreland, while 16 are from Region Six, covering St Catherine. Region Three, which includes St Ann and Trelawny, accounts for one student.
The ministry said it “remains committed to reducing student absenteeism and continues to enable schools to implement measures to cauterise this problem even as we partner with external agencies to implement strategies to eradicate absenteeism”.
Head of the St Elizabeth Police Division, Superintendent Coleridge Minto, said that while there was no data supporting claims of organised child labour or criminal recruitment, authorities remained concerned about the number of students still outside the school system.
“But we do know that some students have not returned. About two or three months ago, we were seeing about 400 absent students at that time. Since then, we have been working with schools and have seen some students who were absent have returned,” Minto said.
Stewart Jacobs, president of the National Parent-Teacher Association of Jamaica, argued that the country may now have to rethink how it reaches students who have already drifted toward the workforce.
“It’s all about what we do. Do we try to force them back into school or do we let them work on the construction site and at the same time educate and certify them as construction workers?” Jacobs asked.
Still, he warned that vulnerable students left outside the formal school system could easily become targets for gangs and organised crime.
“The gangs are always recruiting ... and the fact that the kids are not in school and working in certain industries means there is downtime in those industries, and the devil finds work for idle hands,” Jacobs cautioned.
“The conversation in this country has to be: ‘How can we increase these students’ interest in education?’,” one administrator said.
“Can we restore the value of education to youth, especially our boys, to let them know that education actually pays?”
Measures the Ministry of Education says it has taken to combat absenteeism
*Weekly attendance tracking – schools required to submit weekly attendance data.
*Home visits by principals, guidance counsellors and deans of discipline to ascertain reasons for absenteeism and account for students who migrated to other regions/countries or transferred to other schools.
*Home visits are also done by parent mentors of the NPSC who offer psychosocial first aid to parents and guide them in accessing support to address their predominant needs.
*Media appeals done to involve local communities to assist in the return of students to schools.
*Increased access to psychosocial support services for students and parents.
*Interagency support for vulnerable families to create a semblance of normalcy.
*The regions have all reported unaccounted-for students to the CPFSA with the remit to investigate and enforce the law.