The Mijas Town Hall has been awarded in the VII Contest of good practices convened by the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP), which has recognized the Social Services area in the categories of prevention and intervention against school absenteeism and in the improvement of school coexistence, being the only municipality in Malaga to be awarded at a national level and which presents an abandonment rate of 0.2%, as reported this Wednesday by the mayor, Josele González.
The councilor has highlighted that “few acknowledgments give as much joy as those that are related to the fight against school absenteeism or the improvement of the coexistence of our educational centers”, as well as has indicated that “for Mijas both issues are a priority and, therefore, we receive with great enthusiasm these two national awards from the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces that endorse the work so important that the professionals that make up the Department of Social Services are developing”.
Thus, it has been highlighted that the figure of the guardian agent “plays a fundamental role in the fight against school absenteeism”, pointing out that “in a municipality as large as ours, with 12,000 students, the fact that we have a 0.2% rate of absenteeism indicates that we are doing things well, but not we can relax because the goal is 0%”.
For his part, the Councilor for Social Services, Hipólito Zapico, added that in Mijas it has gone from “400 unresolved cases of absenteeism in 2015 to 33 in 2022”. The mayor added that “it must be taken into account that some of them are foreign children who change their address and do not communicate it, and it is very difficult for us to keep track of them.”
Mijas has been awarded by the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) in two categories. The first is prevention and intervention against school absenteeism in municipalities due to its program “network absenteeism”, whose main objective is to prevent cases of school absenteeism and detect situations of risk of social exclusion, as well as the implementation of measures to prevent school dropout.
Within this program, the Alternative Coexistence Classroom (ACA), a Red Cross project subsidized by the Social Services to help minors expelled from educational centers; or the intervention program with minors with socialization difficulties that the centers have (PIM).
Both initiatives have recently been merged into one called PHEM. Also noteworthy is the tutor agent program, awarded several times by the FEMP itself. “We have offered our experience to various municipalities in our environment and we know that they are putting it into operation with very good results”, Zapico highlighted.
With the aim of combining efforts, the municipal commission of school absenteeismmade up of the areas of Social Services, Education, the Mijas Local Police, the educational centers and the Educational Guidance team, a body that meets quarterly and that has made it possible to prevent, detect and intervene in possible cases of absenteeism in the location.