ANEP sent letters to more than 50,000 families as part of its plan to increase school attendance

In a world where social networks are flooded with images and information every second, paper letters play another role after achieving positive results in reversing Uruguay’s “structural” problems: Attendance among public school students is very low.

Newest Primary and Elementary Education Monitoring The report shows that the average schoolchild missed nearly a month of school in 2023 (an average of 149.4 days out of 176.5 days), which means a decline after a small rebound following the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, pupils from the most disadvantaged backgrounds continue to accumulate more absences than other pupils.

With this photo, ANEP This year it was decided to adopt a pilot program, which has achieved good results. Sebalis an online platform for the development of national and international reference educational learning, which in 2023 tested a specific initiative previously deployed in the United States and supported by Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

The pilot program, designed by the Ceibal Behavioral Perspectives Laboratory, consists of sending three personalized letters to 27,354 families of students in grades 1 to 3, from a representative sample of 210 schools in the provinces of Artigas, Canelones, Colonia, Montevideo, San José and Treinta y Tres, stressing the importance of your child being in class.

The program, which has yielded good results, includes an initial letter sent in May, remembering the student’s absences from the previous year, considering this to be a good predictor of his absences in future years; another letter in August noting the absences accumulated during the current academic year, and a third letter in October updating that figure.

On the one hand, a Ceibal report obtained by El País shows that in schools that serve the most vulnerable groups (quintiles 1 to 3), they have achieved “significant results”, with the number of absentees falling by 2.2 that year. At the same time, the attendance of the average absentee student has also increased by 2.4. In other words, they are not the most lacking, but they are not the least doing either.

The overall proportion of chronic absentees (approximately 18 or more absences over the year) increased from 65% to 59% in the representative sample, while it decreased from 75% to 68% among students in the most disadvantaged quintiles 1 to 3.

The report also states that such sending of letters “benefits attendance for the majority of pupils but does not change the attendance patterns of pupils with few absences (who continue to be on their best behaviour) nor does it change the attendance patterns of pupils with high rates of absences or severe absences”.

With these results, the pilot program has been transformed into a new ANEP measure, within the framework of the ASSIST program, aimed at improving the meagre level of assistance, with a scope that is almost doubled. Thus, between the end of May and the beginning of June, 50,719 families of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds (quintiles 1 to 3) with a cumulative absence of 16 or more in 2023 have received a first letter; in August, they will receive a second and in October, a third.

“ATTENDANCE IS IMPORTANT AND YOU CAN HELP,” the letter to parents begins, written in blue letters in all capital letters. “Whether for legitimate or illegitimate reasons, students cannot learn when they are absent from school. Families, you can help reduce absences this school year,” the letter adds. Teachers, principals and inspectors are being made aware of the letter for possible queries.

The document immediately reiterates the number of absences for each child, and the color bar changes from yellow to red when a student accumulates 10% or more absences. From this threshold, serious absences begin, which is 64.4% in 2023, which remains stable from 2022 (64.9%).

Photo: ANEP

In addition, a pilot program was launched this year for students in grades 4 to 6, with approximately 4,000 letters received from a nationally representative sample. If similar results are shown, the intervention will be applied to the entire basic Starting from 2025.

Why not choose faster and cheaper options, such as sending messages via email or social networks? “We found a study in the United States that has been replicated many times that reduces absenteeism with paper letters,” said Irene González, Ceibal Data and Behavioral Sciences Manager, when consulted by El País.

The purpose of the letter was to “draw attention to a phenomenon that is often invisible.” During the survey process of the pilot program, they found that families and teachers underestimated the number of absences; the problem was invisible, and there was a disconnect between cumulative absences and monthly absences. The report stated that responses included that two or three absences per month were “no big deal.”

Adding to this is the additional problem that “most instances of long-term absences (18 absences or more) are not detected by the system” because absences are “skipped” and not detected by the system. Korian alert is only issued when there are three consecutive absences. El País reported that ANEP is working to change this system to give teachers and parents a more realistic picture of absences.

“When there’s an immediate need for action, like signing up for a course, digital media is appropriate, but when you want the message to be noticed, this letter will resonate more than the WhatsApp messages or emails we receive all the time,” González explained.

He noted that international evidence showed that paper was an “essential part” of interventions designed to generate “attention” or “notoriety” amid the array of digital communications received every day.

“It’s a multi-cause problem and you have to have a range of solutions. Part of it can be addressed on a behavioral level. You can reduce some of the absenteeism, but you can’t solve it,” Gonzalez said of school absenteeism.

Experts emphasize that intervening by writing letters to family members is “Effective” reduction of absenteeism by “50%” It is in the middle”, missing a lot, but not too much, and it is recommended that other interventions should be used to address this problem.

Newest Education MonitorIt noted that 0.8% of schoolchildren were registered as “intermittent dropouts”, meaning they attended classes for no more than 70 days, or in other words, they missed more than 100 days, concentrated in the lowest quintile.

On the other hand, last year’s Ceibal pilot involved sending WhatsApp messages with details of absences to a group of teachers, but “it did nothing to reduce absences,” González said.

“The messages sent to teachers were effective in correcting their perceptions, but they did not in themselves affect pupils’ attendance,” the report states.