Finding a positive solution to fight truancy will be the focus in a forum entitled 'To Jail or Not To Jail - Or What?' organised by the Bar Council scheduled to be held next week.

Fresh from addressing fathers' rights in a forum held in September, the Council hopes to use the forum to get views, experience and opinion from both public and government sectors in resolving this problem.

The forum organising chairperson Serene Ong said children who play truant themselves should come up and share their thoughts.

"We want to hear from the children themselves why they play truant. Are they bored with the school curriculum or are they distracted by cybercafes? We want to know.

"We do not feel that all ills of society can be solved by putting in punitive measures. We feel that we should look on the root causes of the problem and try to address it," she told the press in the council's office in Kuala Lumpur today ( photo ).

Currently, there are no punitive measures against truants (better known as ponteng in Bahasa Melayu) and it's not a statutory offence. If caught, they will be coaxed to return to school.

Deputy chairman of the forum's organising committee Su Tiang Joo then explained that they had failed to acquire statistic from the Education Ministry that was needed to facilitate further research into truancy.

"We wanted to get statistic from the ministry but unfortunately we were unsuccessful as they said there are reasons why they can't be disclosed. So we have contacted the Home Affairs Ministry to get permission," Su said.

Television campaign

However, statistics were later disclosed in News Straits Times on Oct 23 that there was an increase in truants from 11,836 in 2005 to 14,652 in 2006 according to Deputy Education Minister Noh Omar.

He said anti-truancy squads consisting of police and local authorities currently targets locations frequented by students especially cyber cafes.

According to Noh, a television campaign programme on issues such as bullying and truancy is also in the works.

Su hopes that the ministry would disclose more detailed statistics like the sex, locality and social strata of truants in order for the council to draft better policies to address these groups.

Speakers at the forum will include academicians Dr Farah Nini Dusuki and Dr Goh Chee Leong, counselor C Venukopalan, Shelter's executive director James Nayagam and discipline teacher Mohd Saad Yaacob.