Sooty excuses used as truancy ploy by kids

Some rather creative schoolboys are using the problems that soot coming from the Marsa power station causes as an excuse for playing truant.

Two boys from a secondary school in Marsa informed a MaltaToday journalist that they were roaming the streets at noontime on Thursday because they had been sent home from their school due to the soot from the nearby power station.

On checking facts with the school in question, the journalist discovered that the children’s claim was completely unfounded. As ascertained by the school’s highest authorities, all the staff and children were supposed to be present within the school on the day and nobody had been sent home for any reason whatsoever. Moreover the staff member confirmed that in the eventuality that children needed to be sent home, their parents would be called upon to pick them up.

"No child is allowed out of the school during school hours. The only manner in which these youths could be out of the school at that hour is by not entering it at all…..after getting out of the school van in the morning."

Although the ingenuity of these children’s excuses might raise a smile among us, it does also highlight the fact that truancy is a worrying problem among schoolchildren and needs addressing.