Mr. Director,
The Minister of Education stated that one of this year’s goals will be to improve school attendance, aiming to reach 95%. Without attendance there is no learning, so we are glad that the government has an ambitious and challenging goal to meet the fundamental objective of recovering the damage that the 3 years of pandemic caused in learning. At Fundación Educacional Presente we have been working for 10 years to improve attendance, managing to reduce, on average, one third of chronic absenteeism in the schools we support. Given our experience, we would like to share some lessons learned:
- Attendance improves when the school community values the school.
- Tackling absenteeism requires constant and rigorous monitoring.
- That students are present every day should be a priority in the pedagogical management of the school and not be limited to a statement of the regulations.
All of the above requires intense and focused management. If we want to meet the government’s goal and catch up with the debt we owe our students, we had better not add new priorities at this point in the year. Rebeca Molina L.
Executive Director
Present Educational Foundation
