Payment buys attendance without touching the reasons for absence

The argument

A second argument for this position concerns what a payment actually fixes. Proponents observe that children stay away from school for identifiable reasons: teaching they cannot follow, bullying, a journey that is long or unsafe, illness, caring duties, a curriculum that seems to lead nowhere they recognise, or a family in crisis. A payment addresses none of these. It makes the cost of absence higher, which may bring the child into the building, but the lesson they could not follow is still the lesson they cannot follow and the person who was bullying them is still there. On this view the scheme buys the measurable outcome while leaving the problem in place. Proponents argue that this is worse than merely ineffective, because the appearance of success is what makes the underlying causes easier to ignore. Attendance is the figure that gets reported, and a policy that moves it can be presented as a solution while the harder work of improving teaching, making schools safe and supporting families goes undone. They add that the money is finite: what is spent on payments is not spent on the teachers, support staff, transport and meals that would address the reasons for absence directly. Defenders of the position also note the fragility of what is purchased. Attendance held in place by a payment lasts as long as the payment, which means the scheme must continue indefinitely or lose what it achieved, and the pupils return to the circumstances that kept them away in the first place. By contrast a school that becomes worth attending holds its pupils without a subsidy. On this account children should not be paid to go to school, because payment treats the symptom, consumes the resources that could treat the cause, and leaves nothing behind when it ends.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics reply that the choice presented is a false one, since a payment and better schools are not alternatives and the first can buy time to build the second. They also argue that for one major cause of absence, namely the household's need for a child's labour or income, a payment is precisely a treatment of the cause rather than of the symptom. Others question the claim that nothing is left behind: a pupil who attends for several years because of a payment leaves with literacy and qualifications that remain theirs once the scheme ends, which is not the same as a benefit that evaporates with the subsidy.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Critics argue that one major cause listed, the household's need for a child's labour or income, is addressed directly by a payment rather than left untouched. [Rejecting P2] They object that raising the cost of absence does alter the family's decision, which is itself one of the reasons in question. [Rejecting P3] They reply that payments and better schools are not alternatives, so the trade-off between them is a false choice. [Rejecting C] They conclude that something does remain after the scheme ends, since the literacy and qualifications a pupil gains are theirs to keep.