Do not make PATH harder for those who need it most

THE EDITOR, Madam:

The recent suggestion by Jamaica Teachers’ Association President La Sonja Harrison that parents of students benefiting from PATH should be required to attend at least 75 per cent of PTA meetings or risk losing benefits raises an important question about how social-protection programmes are designed.

Parental involvement in education matters. But PATH is the wrong instrument through which to enforce attendance at PTA meetings.

Consider the parent who cannot leave work for a PTA meeting. Or the domestic worker whose employer will not grant the time off, the vendor who loses a day’s income by attending, or the parent for whom transportation and childcare impose additional costs.

Adding another condition to accessing social assistance may produce a perverse outcome. The households facing the greatest difficulties could become the households most likely to lose support.

Is making PTA attendance a condition for receiving assistance going to improve the welfare and educational outcomes of the children PATH is intended to support?

The ultimate beneficiary is the child who has no control over whether his or her parent attends a PTA meeting. Yet, if benefits are withdrawn because a parent fails to satisfy an attendance requirement, it is the child who will have less support for food, transportation, school supplies and other necessities.

There needs to be stronger parental engagement in education, particularly where children are struggling academically, behaviourally or with school attendance.

Schools can explore alternative meeting times, virtual participation, individual consultations and other ways of keeping parents engaged. Where there is persistent disengagement, particularly when a child is experiencing difficulties, targeted interventions may be necessary.

But it should not be assumed that attaching another condition to PATH will automatically produce better parenting or better educational outcomes.

The purpose of a social-protection programme is to help vulnerable households overcome the circumstances that keep them trapped in poverty. Any condition attached to that assistance must be judged against a basic test: Does it help the programme achieve that objective, or does it make assistance harder to access for the people who need it most?

The parent who finds it hardest to satisfy an additional condition may well be the parent facing the greatest economic and social constraints. And that household may be precisely the one whose child can least afford to lose assistance.

PATH should help families overcome barriers, not create new ones for them to clear.

SUJAE BOSWELL

Former PATH beneficiary