Summer is here

Summer is here and children are out on the streets.  The Minister of Education is making heroic and laudable efforts to get more of our children into school for the new school year, but we continue to allow ALL our children to be out of school for two months (or more for high school age students) every summer.  True, there are numerous summer camps that occupy a minority of urban students for two or three weeks of this time, but this can never take the place of a bold, holistic approach to the problem.
 
Some may ask if this truly is a problem.  Ask any parent and you will find the answer.  Working parents who do not have an extended family living nearby are particularly stressed.  They face financial and emotional strain trying to ensure that their children are kept safe and engaged during the long summer holiday.  Often young children are left in charge of their even younger siblings with no adult to take responsibility should things go wrong.  It is during this long unsupervised time that many young boys are initiated into gangs and both boys and girls experience sexual initiation and sometimes premature parenthood.  Over the past few weeks, I have seen more than one young girl clutching a note written on a page torn out of an exercise book going to business places to request financial assistance for the new school year.  In some cases, the parent may actually be sending the child out to beg but in others it may be an initiative about which the parent has no knowledge.  Either way it puts these young girls at great risk.
 
Ask dedicated teachers about the effects on children of spending two months out of school and you will understand the long term effects this has on the education our children receive.  Children returning to school in September have forgotten much of what they learned in the previous school year including good study habits, all of which has to be relearned.
 
Even children will admit that they miss their friends and get bored during the long holiday. So with all these reasons against keeping children out of school for two or more months every summer why do we still do it?  The long summer break was designed to allow children time to help their families prepare and harvest crops in temperate European climates.  Belize is tropical and so the summer break does not even coincide with a suitable time during the Belizean agricultural cycle.  In addition, Belize is largely urban, and even in rural communities children are not a large factor in agricultural work.  Much of the work is mechanised or run by large commercial enterprises that are forbidden by law from using child labour. 
 
Are there any grounds for keeping a tradition that originated to serve the needs of a different time and place?  It is true that the school year in secondary schools is scheduled around the Christian calendar and external examinations sat by fourth year students.  This schedule of external examinations is itself based on the European agricultural cycle and changing that would be a separate issue.  It is also true that some children are able to visit family in the rural areas or even abroad during the long break and that teachers can attend valuable training sessions during this time.  However, all of these reasons can be accommodated in a new schedule.
 
Schools could have four terms of ten weeks each with two week breaks between most of them and a one month break in the summer or Easter if we so decide.  This would benefit parents and students.  There could still be some summer camps and teacher training sessions and some fortunate children and teachers could still spend a few weeks with family abroad.
 
What is stopping us from taking this relatively simple step to keep our children safe and improve their level of education?