School attendance is down from a regular 90% to 75% this year, after parents were given the option not to send their children to school due to the COVID-19 situation.
Around half those missing students were not attending school because they are classified as vulnerable to repercussions of COVID-19. The other half are cases of absenteeism, Education Minister Owen Bonnici said.
Schools were closed because of the coronavirus in March, but were reopened when the new scholastic year started in September.
Replying to a parliamentary question by Nationalist MP David Thake, Bonnici send that while the government’s advice to parents was to send their children to school as all the necessary precautions were being taken, it was leaving the final decision to the parents.
Children's Commissioner Pauline Miceli had expressed concern about school attendance in early September, while last week NGO Repubblika said that easing compulsory attendance rules due to the pandemic risked creating a "lost generation" of students.