Classroom, the best choice for students

The Barbados Association of Guidance Counsellors is fully in agreement with students returning to the classroom.

President of the association Dr Patricia Welch firmly believes that even as the country continues to battle COVID-19, it is vital that students are allowed to interact with their teachers and friends in a face-to-face setting.

Her comments follow an eventful return to face-to-face classes. At least three schools have been closed because of positive COVID-19 cases among students.

Since the resumption of physical classes on May 2, the Princess Margaret Secondary School, Ellerslie Secondary and most recently Vauxhall Primary, have all been forced to temporarily close their doors.

While there has been opposition from both the Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union (BSTU) and the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) on the resumption of face-to-face classes, Dr Welch told Barbados TODAY she still believed it was the best option for students.

“We are still early in the term, we haven’t even reached the halfway mark in respect to having returned after being away from the school environment and using the virtual platform, but we have found that it is really beneficial for the students, socially, emotionally and academically for them to have the face-to-face interaction.

“I don’t have stats to tell you which one is preferred or which one has proven to be beneficial, the physical or the virtual. I think that there is still some information that needs to be garnered and to be analyzed and so on, but I can say that so far with the return there is a need for that to continue and not only for the academic aspect in terms of the CXCs but also for the children who need to have the interaction with their teachers, with their peers and so on, that is necessary for them,” Dr Welch said.

On Sunday, while speaking at the Barbados Labour Party’s (BLP) three-year anniversary virtual conference, Minister of Education, Technological and Vocational Training, Santia Bradshaw again defended her decision to re-open schools.

Bradshaw contended that the risk of students possibly contracting COVID-19 while at school paled in comparison to the struggles of students in the virtual classrooms.

“We have to make sure that we protect our children. We got our children to school, we made sure that despite all the opposition we were able to get them back into school when others thought that we could not do it. We put over 240 safety monitors in various institutions across this country.

“We blazed a trail over the rest of the region because we were recognized as making sure that our schools were safe and we understand as a party that it is worse to keep children out of school than to have them at school with a potential risk that they can get COVID. The loss of instructional time is too great…” Bradshaw maintained.
(randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)