THE education ministry has still not been able to track down more than 32,000 students who have been missing from the formal education system since March 2020 when the novel coronavirus pandemic hit.

In an update on the ‘Yard to yard find the child’ initiative, which the ministry launched last year, Education Minister Fayval Williams told Parliament Tuesday that $103 million was spent and 1,793 persons engaged in the search to find the students.

She said for the week of February 14, 41,048 remained unaccounted for; 25,521 for the week of February 21; 27,160 for the week of March 7; 29,479 for the week of March 14; 32,711 for the week of March 21; and 39,407 for the week of March 28-April 1.

“Using a weekly average of 32,554 unaccounted for students over the period February 14 to April 1, 2022 shows that we have been able to re-engage approximately 87,446 of the 120,000 students we had indicated were not accounted for during the pandemic. We commit to finding all our students. Our deans of discipline and our guidance officers will specifically redouble their efforts. We also call on all Jamaicans [to assist],” Williams told Parliament Tuesday as she delivered her 2022/23 sectoral presentation in the House of Representatives.

The Yard to yard find the child initiative was launched after the ministry reported that about 120,000 students were not showing up online for classes nor using any of the other avenues that were put in place to continue learning.

Following several weeks of a staggered approach to the return of face-to-face instruction in the classroom, the vaccination target among secondary students was abandoned, alongside physical distancing requirements for the classroom, and schools were advised to return fully to the classroom after the mid-term break in March.

Meanwhile, it is costing the Government approximately $4 billion to try to catch up with the learning loss in education caused by the pandemic, which kept students out of school for close to two years.

According to the figures which the education minister presented to the House, this includes $435 million in additional grants for sanitisation and desks; $250 million on extra lessons; $137 million on masks and test kits and other items; $1 billion for temporary teachers; and $2.2 billion on continued support for online learning and educational resources.

— Alphea Sumner