My response from Swedens Minister of Education (Well, his assistent)

Yax

Yax

Ancient Mariner
Sweden's minister of Education Jan Björklund (A major in the army on leave of absence, I think) recently came up with this proposal regarding how to deal with students skipping classes: Let the police force them to attend. I thought this was hilarious and I emailed him to have him explain himself, since I think this is absolute lunacy.

I belive I wrote something like this (the email's gone. It's not left in the sent folder):

Dear Jan Björklund.

I read in the paper that you think the police should bring students who skip school to class. Would you mind explain how you're thinking?

First off, the police doesn't have that kind of resources. When they are understaffed as it is, and they can't deal with burglary, physical abuse and other crimes, how can they undetake this assignment as well?

Secondly, if someone regulary skips school, then there's some reason for it. The subject might be victim of physical abuse, they might have some unresolved psychological issues, perhaps the persons parents are in a divorce, the home environment isn't safe and so on. Do you actually believe they'll just start to attend because some cop'll come and point his nightstick at him? I think not.

Best regards, Rasmus.
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Response:

"Hi Rasmus. Minister of Education Jan Björklund want to thank you for your email and your remarks. He has asked me, a member of his political staff to answer the question for him.

When it comes to policemen bringing kids to school, you have to note that schoolskipping is the prime reason to children dropping out of school, which leads to poor education, unemployment and other social issues. The Police should aid the school by bringing the kids to school so that the school itself and the social services can start working with them and get them back on track. It's not only the childs family, but the entire society's responsobility to ensure the safety of children and the youth. The police bringing the kids in is of course not the primal alignment of our school politics. Parts of the 605 million crowns (Sweden's currency) that are provided in 2008 will be used for remedial training in school to prevent destructive spirals. Another example is the assignment the Department of the school's developement been given from the government where they should split the funds to the nations municipalitys which works with the collaboration between the school, social services, police and the children-and youngsters-psychiatry department. By adressing the problem widely, we can solve the issues where the sckool skipping is one of the problems the school faces.

Best regards, Erik Scheller"
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Is it just me who thinks they didn't answer my question? Oh, and is it ANYONE who thinks the Minister of Educations proposition is  a good one? I don't.


Discuss please.
 
I'll be pleased to discuss, but first, I need to know...at what age can someone drop out of school in Sweden, legally?  What age groups are we talking about here?
 
LooseCannon said:
I'll be pleased to discuss, but first, I need to know...at what age can someone drop out of school in Sweden, legally?  What age groups are we talking about here?
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You can legally drop out of school after finishing the 9th grade ( when you're 15-16). And he's talking about the police forcing students to attend who haven't reached that age. Of course, you should find a way to make them attend, but his is not a good one. It does NOT help them with their assumed underlying problems. Really, if you've decided you don't care about school because you're suicidal and suffering from anorexia, would you suddenly think "I need to attend, because Mr. Policeman tells me to!" ? I think not. That's not to adress the problem. You can't force someone with psychological issues to go to school if that someone doesn't want to. That's not the way to go about it.
 
I agree that forcing children to go to school is a bad idea.  If they do so, children will only grow to resent the police.  I think that police have better things to do than catch truants.  In Canada, we did find that about 10 years ago, children were most likely to be sent to juvenile hall for truancy, and have since changed the law.

However, you may still need to force the children to come so you can begin the appropriate programs to deal with the reasons behind the truancy.  So maybe once or twice, not bad.
 
LooseCannon said:
I agree that forcing children to go to school is a bad idea.  If they do so, children will only grow to resent the police.  I think that police have better things to do than catch truants.  In Canada, we did find that about 10 years ago, children were most likely to be sent to juvenile hall for truancy, and have since changed the law.

However, you may still need to force the children to come so you can begin the appropriate programs to deal with the reasons behind the truancy.  So maybe once or twice, not bad.
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But who should force them? The teacher? The social services? Superman? Who?

And yes, I agree with you, you need to find a way to make them. But really, IF you have severe psychological/emotional issues, is it really the best way to first force them to attend, and THEN adress the problem? I think it should be reversed. First adress the issue, and then solve the problem (the truency).

But our way of dealing with children skipping school is... Well... We don't. Instead, we enforce the attendancy by say, having the people skipping school go bowling and such. We let them do the fun stuff instead of educating them to encourage them to go to school. Doesn't the hard working students need encouragement too? And I don't see that playing around is a good way to deal with the situation. On the other hand, I think it's lunacy to have the police force them.

It's a tough problem here. How should it be resolved?
 
Yax said:
But who should force them? The teacher? The social services? Superman? Who?

And yes, I agree with you, you need to find a way to make them. But really, IF you have severe psychological/emotional issues, is it really the best way to first force them to attend, and THEN adress the problem? I think it should be reversed. First adress the issue, and then solve the problem (the truency).

But our way of dealing with children skipping school is... Well... We don't. Instead, we enforce the attendancy by say, having the people skipping school go bowling and such. We let them do the fun stuff instead of educating them to encourage them to go to school. Doesn't the hard working students need encouragement too? And I don't see that playing around is a good way to deal with the situation. On the other hand, I think it's lunacy to have the police force them.

It's a tough problem here. How should it be resolved?
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How can you address the problem if you don't know where the kids are?  I doubt we see, too often, severe psychological or emotional issues.  Most truancy is likely caused by poor parental supervision.
 
LooseCannon said:
How can you address the problem if you don't know where the kids are?  I doubt we see, too often, severe psychological or emotional issues.  Most truancy is likely caused by poor parental supervision.
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You don't just go and "You follow me NOW! You're going to sit down and listen to a lecture in school, or I'll punch you." Before you can do that, you need to know what the hell is going on. Yes, you need to straighten the whole family-thingy but you do that BEFORE you force them to go to school. Of course, you need to make them talk about the problem and adress it. But it doesn't work to just start with making them attend school. That's still a few steps after.
 
Yax said:
You don't just go and "You follow me NOW! You're going to sit down and listen to a lecture in school, or I'll punch you." Before you can do that, you need to know what the hell is going on. Yes, you need to straighten the whole family-thingy but you do that BEFORE you force them to go to school. Of course, you need to make them talk about the problem and adress it. But it doesn't work to just start with making them attend school. That's still a few steps after.
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here's my point, Yax:

How do you expect to get to the point where you know what the issue is when the student becomes truant?  Some times, the teachers or principals might have an idea what's going on with that kid's family, or what-have-you, but I would guess, most likely, not.  They may be in an abusive situation nobody knows about.  So how do you begin the healing process, how do you address the root cause of the problem when you have no method of locating or understanding that issue without direct contact with the truant student?
 
Ah, sorry, I missed that sentence. ;)

EDIT: Then I should elaborate, to answer Loosey.

It's not always easy to make a kid to open up so much as to get to the core of the problem. That's what school psychologists are there for. They've got the necessary professional knowledge to make the kid talk. The very first step might be by simply asking, "why aren't you going to school?" and keep asking "why" until you've got a satisfactory reason. If you like it that way, you can turn this into a general survey with the psychologists turning in their answers and form all that into statistics and so on... but the first step, to resolving any problem, is asking "why".
 
Perun said:
It's not always easy to make a kid to open up so much as to get to the core of the problem. That's what school psychologists are there for. They've got the necessary professional knowledge to make the kid talk. The very first step might be by simply asking, "why aren't you going to school?" and keep asking "why" until you've got a satisfactory reason. If you like it that way, you can turn this into a general survey with the psychologists turning in their answers and form all that into statistics and so on... but the first step, to resolving any problem, is asking "why".
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I agree with you.  But if the darn kids aren't there...how are you going to ask them why?
 
I don't know what it's like in Nova Scotia, but all the schools I went to, including the one in Ontario, had my home address...
 
Perun said:
I don't know what it's like in Nova Scotia, but all the schools I went to, including the one in Ontario, had my home address...
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So, instead of sending police to find the kids, we're going to send shrinks?  Plus, we're assuming that the children spend their time at home - many don't, they spend their time elsewhere.
By the way, Yax, awesome job getting involved in the school system.  I think if more children spoke up about what was going on in the school system, there could be some huge improvements.
 
So, you're basically arguing we should find a way to solve the problem without talking to the kids?

It's not impossible to reach a kid who's not in school. And yes, you're going to need people to do that. If it's about the education of children, I really don't see how employing extra people to reach them in the first place is going to harm.
 
My point is that while strongarming children into school is a bad idea, you're not going to get them to go by sending out shrinks, either.  Parents, I would say, are less likely to co-operate with social workers or school officials than police, as well.  What I am saying is that there needs to be a balanced approach.
 
The united states has been doing this for quite a while. Here's the thing. School is seriously like a type of daycare. While mom and pop are at work, the kid's in school "learning"... theoretically away from trouble. If they skip school they might do drugs, vandalize property, join a gang, etc. Also, at least in the U.S if you are a minor you are property, your parents' property, if you are not your parents' property you are a ward of the state, thus the police can round up "stray" teenagers and take them back to school, because that is where they are supposed to be according to Big Brother.
 
Unless your mommy and daddy don't like that gawd-damn evil-lution, then the kids stay home and learn that global warming isn't a big thing, after all, what's the big deal that everything's 1.5 degrees warmer?
 
Assuming that the children can be found for a moment, LC, and then talked to, Perun, is there not a program in place for children from troubled homes to get home schooled and possible in home counseling, Yax?
 
Deano said:
Assuming that the children can be found for a moment, LC, and then talked to, Perun, is there not a program in place for children from troubled homes to get home schooled and possible in home counseling, Yax?
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I don't know about a program for getting home schooled. Some are home schooled, but it's very rare. What do you mean by home counseling?

THis about troubled homes... Actually, during later years there has been a number of cases where the parents actually kept the children from going to school because they didn't like the thought of their children goign to school. Instead they locked them at home and avoided the teachers when they rang and so on. And what did the social service do? They went on coffeebreak (meaning they didn't do shit. But note that this with the social services are rare cases. It's not what the system looks like).
 
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