President of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) Verla DePeiza has described Government’s Easter weekend stay-at-home programme as unnecessarily complicated.
DePeiza said that while the Government is attempting to avoid public gatherings during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it is sending mixed messages to the population.
“The Ministry of Education called a meeting for how much ever thousand teachers in one location, granted that meeting did not come off. But, there is another indoor meeting tomorrow [Monday March 29]. So we are sending these mixed messages that it is okay to gather for one reason, but not okay to gather for another, as though COVID makes a distinction,” DePeiza told Barbados TODAY.
She said that she shared the same view regarding the night time curfew, and noted that COVID-19 is not a vampire. She stressed that much was not being achieved by allowing residents latitude during the day but curbing their movements at night.
She said Government must be consistent with how it manages the pandemic.
“I understand that we are trying to find a balance between commerce and health. I get that and I get that it is necessary. But we need honestly to sit and think about the rationale for doing things and then an appropriate means of delivery. But I understand what they are trying to do over Easter weekend,” she said.
DePeiza is also concerned about Minister of Education Santia Bradshaw’s announcement last week that thousands of children will be heading back to the face-to-face teaching environment next month. She said authorities must be mindful that children have tested positive for COVID-19, in light of the fact that teachers would not be treated as frontline workers.
“As a matter of fact when their leader asked for them to be considered frontline workers it was rubbished. Now they are scrambling to vaccinate them in time for school, but forgetting that this is the first dose. Children cannot be vaccinated at all and I think that is a consideration that we are allowing to slide. Yes, our children are not receiving education as they ought, but then are we delivering it as we should?”
The DLP president argued that education policymakers should be focusing on significant change in the delivery of education, by actively looking at ways to rationalize the system to make it more relevant to children and to society.
“We can’t be educating for education sake. There has to be an end point. So perhaps what we need to do more is change our focus of education. But we need to tread cautiously in relation to the return to the classroom.” (AH)
