Young People Losing Out and Dropping Out

Salome Tillett

A recent survey has shown that a large number of students at all levels have dropped out of school due to the changes in learning instituted during the pandemic. Principal Salome Tillett also sits on the COVID-19 Taskforce and is a member of the Belize Association of Principals of Secondary Schools. She spoke to News Five about the young people who no longer have school as a safe space.

Salome Tillett, Member, Belize Association of Principals of Secondary Schools

“While we have made every effort to be resilient – we will be innovative, we will make it work – there is still a sense of sadness and loss. Our young people are losing out. And not only losing out in their interactions, but a large number of them are not in schools at all. So those are kids we have to look on. We recently did a survey and of approximately twenty schools that had responded, there are about three hundred kids that have dropped out of the system. So we wonder where are those kids? If they are boys, what are they doing all day? There is an assumption that students are safe at home; that may not be true. They may not be safe at home; they might be on the street and who may be an unsafe or unsupervised place. So school was a safe place for them. And so I think for all of us educators, and I am sure it is true for the Ministry of Education as well, we are concerned for those kids that we are not reaching.”