As you grow up, you are taught that your elders are always right. If they tell you that there is no monster under the bed, you have to believe them. It does not matter what you saw or what you heard. You are a child and you are wrong. They are adults and they are right. Well, it turns out that that was a load of hogwash. 

The perennial issue of absenteeism in schools is the perfect example of the adult con. There is nothing new in the story, other than the sheer absurdity of the government’s reaction to it. The Ministry of Education has opted for punitive measures for pupils going to sit the School Certificate (SC) and Higher School Certificate (HSC) exams. Parents will be forced to pay for the exam fees if their child has been absent from school for more than 10% of the school year. They were even given a deadline — till the end of this week — to make the payment, threatening to hold back exam timetables otherwise. A very grown-up reaction by all accounts. After pressure from parents and students alike, the deadline was eventually pushed to October. 

While surely no pupil will dismiss the claim that they are absent far too often, these punitive measures put the burden of responsibility completely on their shoulders, while the adults get to walk away scot free.  As a former teacher herself, Leela Devi Dookhun-Luchoomun, minister of education, cannot turn a blind eye to our broken education system, a product of the failure of successive governments. 

It would be easy to find parents willing to testify that teachers don’t do any work at school or that schools themselves give the pupils too much leeway. There is no control regardless of the media scrutiny. If it was only about one or two pupils, it would have been a different debate. However, we are talking about thousands of pupils who skip school. It can’t all be their fault. Not that Dookhun-Luchoomun cares as she tries to enforce these unfair measures. She is the responsible adult and you have no say in what she decides. 

Direct confrontation between secondary school pupils and the authorities does not seem too far away either. As a matter of fact, a peaceful protest is a trait of a working democracy. It would still be a risky move given how close the exams are and how dangerously vindictive the government is. It would not be surprising to find pupils banned from examination centres for being outspoken critics of the education system. 

They are adults and you are children. What you say barely matters without the approval of an adult. Or so they believe. It is time to tell them that they cannot toy with the future of this country just to maintain an outrageous political discourse. We cannot daydream of what we want our lives to be while adults lie to us and pretend everything’s alright. 

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