Discussions continue on Eleven-plus logistics, new school year

Education officials are considering a blend of face-to-face teaching with online learning when secondary and primary schools reopen in September, Minister of Education Santia Bradshaw announced on Friday.

And she acknowledged that it would be difficult to enforce physical distancing regulations with a full reopening of classes.

Addressing journalists after receiving 160 tablets from the Capital Kids Project and the Amarone Trust, Bradshaw indicated that further discussions with teachers’ unions and other stakeholders were still ongoing.

But, she added, lessons from the ongoing limited return to classes would be instructive on the way forward.

“We have all intentions of resuming school in September once Coronavirus cases continue to trend in the right direction. But trying to get the entire school population back into the school plant will present challenges with the current restrictions and we have been looking at implementing staggered times, staggered classes or specific form levels coming back in,” said the Education Minister.

On the other end of the spectrum, Bradshaw also admitted that much work must still be done to provide equitable access to e-learning platforms and technological devices.

She said: “We need to determine what are the challenges and how we are going to cope with additional numbers. Right now the students are there for practically half day and in the future, maybe we might be able to have another group coming in later and then extending for the rest of the afternoon or being able to have the online learning when everyone has devices. But at this point the focus has been on ensuring a smooth transition for the students who are preparing for exams,” said Bradshaw.

“Our focus in the last few weeks has been primarily on the students sitting exams. We met with the unions and had preliminary discussions on how that would look and thankfully we have been able to find a resolution as far as going back in and ensuring everybody is satisfied that all the health protocols have been followed.”

According to Bradshaw, the ongoing resumption of classes for senior primary and secondary school students has been going smoothly and there has been general compliance to most of the implemented protocols like maintaining distances of six feet and enforcing temperature checks when students arrive.

With this year’s Common Entrance exam in just over three weeks, it still has not been decided whether the examination will be sat at secondary schools as is customary or whether they will be held at primary schools to maintain physical distancing.

“In relation to physical distancing in the primary schools, the classrooms in some cases don’t have the spacing, so we are just waiting today to find out which primary schools can facilitate it or whether we can go straight back to secondary or make a compromise by hosting some at primary and the others at secondary,” Bradshaw disclosed.

The Education Minister also said the Mottley administration’s plans to abolish the Common Entrance Exam and implement a number of other educational reforms have been further disrupted by the outbreak of COVID-19.

She added that the educational reform committee established to oversee the changes has been unable to initiate the level of public dialogue needed before the changes can occur.

Bradshaw told journalists: “Our inability to host town hall meetings has obviously interfered with our ability to go into the communities and have those large groups across the country. So we are revisiting that and perhaps we need to start our discussions in September, but first, we need to see what is happening with the reopening of the economy and public health as well because we want the widest engagement as opposed to just doing it online when some are unable to get online or they feel excluded from somehow being a part of the discussion.”

kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb