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EDUCATION Minister Fayval Williams said Tuesday that her ministry will not be leaving school attendance to chance as students in public schools start returning to face-to-face classes.In a statement updating her colleagues in the House of Representatives on the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information's strategy for the resumption of face-to-face classes, Williams said that while the numbers of students returning school varied between 35 per cent and 85 per cent, the ministry recognised Monday as only the first day of the new term."After a very long time of being out, we expect the attendance to improve as the month progresses," she said."However, we are not leaving the attendance at schools to chance. Our Yard-to-Yard Find the Child initiative has been rolled out, officially. Additionally, for the past 18 months regional and school-based support teams have been working to locate and re-engage the students," she said.She said that education officers engaged in schools' operations will be assisting the schools so that students 12-18 year old can get vaccinated, "and get back to school, as quickly as possible".She stated that, to date, approximately 100,000 students, from a population of approximately 240,000, would have had at least one vaccination jab. However, she said the ministry is still guided by the national average vaccination threshold of 65 per cent, "meaning that as soon as a number of students are fully vaccinated and our schools get to 65 per cent, those students can return to face-to-face classes".She added that the ministry will continue to use the online audio visual learning kit for those students whose parents have chosen not to let them take the vaccination. She said that she was imploring the school teachers and administrators that if they have not already done so, "to get vaccinated so that we can save the resilient corridors for our scholars".Said Williams: "We have seen how the resilient corridors have worked well in the tourism sector. Keeping people safe. Let's get vaccinated. Let's get back to life."Williams also pointed to the new Sixth Form Pathways Programme, the K - 13 strategy, which has been offered by her ministry to ensure that Jamaican students have access to education from the early childhood to secondary levels of the education system.She noted that 27,000 of more than 40,000 students 16-17 years who graduate from eleventh grade have face a "very uncertain future", despite many of them going to school from as early as three years old, She attributed this to the fact that most secondary schools do not have the physical capacity to accommodate their full grade 11 cohort at grades 12 and 13.Her ministry is currently seeking to increase access to Grades 12 and 13, by integrating the Career Advancement Programme (CAP) and the Occupational Associates Degree into the sixth form programme. This will result in students having access to multiple programme options/pathways for sixth form."The Sixth Form Pathways Programme will bring hope to many students who would have left fifth form, or grade level with none or few subjects and nowhere to go," she noted.Responding to the minister, Opposition spokesperson Dr Angela Brown Burke said that she agreed with the attendance figures given by the minister."Some (schools) had good attendance, others were low, and I am pleased to hear that you are going to be having the yard-to-yard programme, where you will go out and find these students. Many of them are lost to the system, and are permanently lost to the system which what we can't afford," she said.However, she said that she was also concerned about the more than 40,000 eleventh grade students who were missing, and the 15,000 who are believed to be still missing.Brown Burke said she is hoping that students who have not received the necessary vaccine jabs realise that the vaccination "is the first line of defence against COVID, and we are clear on that".