THE same thing happens every year around this time before examinations. The periods before and during the examinations are the most critical for parents when it comes to controlling their children, especially boys. There is a lack of supervision from parents and schools. Sometimes boys are released early from school and without the knowledge of their parents because the schools failed to notify them. Despite the many articles written on this matter, this issue has not been tackled yet. The period between students being discharged from school until they reach home is a perfect time for drug dealers and deviants to lure youth to engage in bad activities. These youth are far away from school supervision outside the school walls and they can be easily targeted. There is no mechanism to maintain supervision over them until their drivers or parents pick them up. If anything bad happened to the youth, then the excuse by the school is ready: “He is outside school and we are not responsible.” This problem is prevalent during normal school days and is worse during examination periods, which last for two weeks. We have the ability as parents to work with the Ministry of Education to solve the problem. We should join hands and ask police to provide us with help. We want to reach a stage where the responsibility of monitoring children outside schools is assigned to a special security department that belongs to schools or the ministry.
