15 Sep 2015

Tonga youths helping school drop outs

3:43 pm on 15 September 2015

The Tonga National Youth Congress is on a mission to help young people who have dropped out of school get back on track.

It is estimated there have been 1,000 school drop outs in Tonga every year since 2008, with many of them never getting the help they need to get back into the education system.

The one-year project is being supported by the aid organisation, International Needs.

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Photo: 123rf

Its executive director, Gradon Harvey, says as part of the first phase of the project, the National Youth Congress has been speaking to school principals and students to find out how it can help.

"For instance, the found there were three students that had dropped out just because their family couldn't pay school fees, so they were able to help. They also looked at, through discussions with the principals, ways where they might re-engage the young ones that had dropped out. They all said quite honestly once the children that had been causing problems were out of the school they kind of moved on and had forgotten about them."