Attendance in the pits? You lose your benefits.

[Lyricmaniac]

Do you believe families who are on welfare should have their welfare benefits cut if their child is excessively truant?

Parents of truants to lose welfare

By Malcolm Farr

August 25, 2008 12:01am
Article from: The Daily Telegraph

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FAMILIES on welfare will lose their benefits for up to three months if their children constantly duck school.

Government legislation this week will ask Parliament to endorse the tough conditions in a bid to end alarming truancy rates in some areas.

Regular school attendance will become a "mutual responsibility" condition for receiving all welfare, except the Family Tax Benefit.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday said that if a child avoided school with no reasonable excuse, welfare payments would be suspended for 13 weeks.

The decision would be made through Centrelink after contact from schools.

"The key thing for us is to make the education revolution real for all kids, including those kids

where school attendance is a real problem," Mr Rudd told The Daily Telegraph.

"Obviously there can't be an education revolution for kids if they're not at school, and we are determined to make sure across Australia that they are attending schools properly."

He acknowledged the measure would be controversial.

Welfare groups are certain to argue that depriving a family of income for three months would do excessive harm, even if it does get a child back to school.

And it would join a lengthening list of proposals to intervene in welfare use, such as measures to prevent benefits being wasted on alcohol and drugs.

The Government wants to run eight pilot studies of the scheme.

"There has to be what you would describe as 'reasonable grounds' (for being absent)," Mr Rudd said.

"The kid who is away for days on end without a medical certificate, or without any other reasonable presentation of grounds, those measures will kick in.

"It's part of our approach of mutual responsibility and we think it is an important way to go because it's those kids who miss out from regular school attendance who are going to be the most vulnerable across the entire country."


I think losing welfare is a lovely idea. If a parents sits at home collecting government money all day, there is no excuse in my book not to be able to ensure your kid gets to school and goes to class.

[Thunderclam]

I get that, but then there's a reason why certain people end up on welfare. If they can't control their own lives due to whatever issues, sometimes quite legitimate ones, how can they be expected to control their kids' lives? Special programs to intervene, such as Big Brothers, are more likely to produce positive results than simply pulling the plug on a family's income for, what I think, is a dumb fucking reason that reveals the colossal lack of understanding priveleged people have for unpriveleged people.

I should know, I was raised on welfare.

[Lunarea]

I'm reminded of a classmate I had in school. He never showed up at school for 4 months (literally, not a single day). All attempts made to reach his mother were unsuccessful, so the dean/teachers concluded he just was no longer enrolled. At our mid-year parent/teacher meeting, his mom actually showed up (she had learned about the meeting from a neighbor). It shocked the heck out of the homeroom teacher.

It turned out that his mom would drop him off at school every morning and drive an hour to take care of her father. She'd meet him after school was out and they'd drive back to the grandfather's place together. He'd lie to her about the stuff he learned and pretended he went to class every day. He actually spent the time hanging out with come highschool dropouts.

His mom was so upset that he did this that she spent half of her welfare check for a few months on getting a nurse for her father and actually attended class with the boy. It was weird, but he attended school regularly from that point on.

This kind of thing is less likely to happen these days, but I think it illustrates a good point: that each case should be treated individually. Some families would definitely benefit from having the truancy law, but others could be hurt by it.

I think they would do better by offering people benefits for having their kids in school. A little bit of extra income while the child is attending school regularly would be enticing to at least a few parents. Having free school supplies would be less of a burden for the parents. A free breakfast/lunch for the child might also give the child an incentive to go to school more often (especially if it's pizza and brownies :grin:). Being able to offer small prizes to children for attendance and/or excellency are also a good motivator. There's a school here that offers a 25$ gift card to students who have great attendance for 3 months. Since they implemented this, the attendance has gone up by 40%.

[Lyricmaniac]

Evan, what reasons could there be not to be able to get your kid to school?

Shigi, that's really sad. The principal fucked up by not notifying the parent. If I was notified that my kid was ditching, I'd personally walk the kid into class or have my child transferred to one of the problem kid schools that would ensure his learning.

[HawkZombie]

I am dead set against welfare in most cases.

I come from a -very- poor family, who was, in fact, on welfare.

I hated every minute of it, and so did my parents, but it was a life saver for a short time. The problem is, nothing is really done to make sure people want to get OFF welfare. They just collect their checks and are done with it.

Some people are too proud to work as a cashier, or get a job slinging burgers, and I should have to pay for that pride? No thanks.

Those with legitimate, and reasonable reasons (Physical and Mental Disabilities, etc) are fine in my book for long term care, but those that are perfectly healthy? Get a job, bum.

I think this should be enacted. It adds a higher sense of responsibility to the situation, and I'd imagine the chances of it 'affecting the wrong person' would be low. I mean...if you can't ensure at the very least your kid goes to school to better themselves, then why on earth should we pay you to create a new generation of welfare recipients?

I work my ass off for my money. People who can should be expected to earn it as well.

[Barbatos]

Yeah, welfare is a terrible, terrible idea. People on welfare typically are there because they're lazy and unwilling to get a job. They cry about not having any job opportunities - right that really explains why thousands of people around them have jobs. They keep having children despite not being able to support them. They need to be sterilized and exiled to Mexico or Canada so they can stop wasting the resources consumed by hard working people.

Twi, i'm looking at you!