Minister Pledges Action as 8,000 Students Skip School Daily

Education Minister Dr. Ismail Shafeeu has declared that no child will be allowed to remain out of school, following revelations that approximately 8,000 students fail to attend classes every day. The Minister of Education, Higher Education and Skills Development shared these figures on June 30 during the release of the Key Stage-3 2025 National Assessment of Learning Outcomes report. The data reveals a significant geographical concentration of truancy, with 40 percent of daily absences occurring in schools across the Greater Malé region, including Malé, Villimalé, and Hulhumalé. Minister Shafeeu emphasized that this trend is a critical concern for the nation's human capital development and requires urgent intervention from parents, teachers, and the Majlis (the Maldivian Parliament). Addressing a parliamentary inquiry, the Minister noted that while attendance monitoring was strictly enforced by the 2013 administration, subsequent governments failed to maintain those standards. To rectify this, the Ministry has overhauled its oversight protocols. Under previous regulations, schools were only required to report absences after a student had missed three days of class. New measures, implemented on June 21, now mandate that schools submit attendance data to the Ministry on a daily basis. Minister Shafeeu stated that the new reporting process has already helped the government identify the scale of the problem. He clarified that current trends of non-attendance are not primarily driven by health conditions, suggesting that deeper underlying reasons must be investigated to bring students back to the classroom. To ensure immediate compliance, the Minister has met with school principals in the Malé region to mandate stricter disciplinary measures. He reiterated that the administration remains committed to an absolute policy of zero tolerance for chronic truancy, ensuring that every child in the Maldives has access to and attends their education.