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Parent advocate voices concerns about return to classrooms

by Barbados Today
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There are still lingering concerns from the local Group of Concerned Parents about a lack of adequate planning and resources to facilitate the safe resumption of schools.

In a statement, the group, led by Paula-Anne Moore acknowledged the efforts of education officials to launch face-to-face learning, but also pointed to a number of deficiencies within the current structure.

Among the requests from the group is the need for more human resources to address the potential shortage of teaching staff that is likely to exist in the absence of substantive teachers because of COVID-19 quarantine and/or isolation.

Ms Moore called for the hiring of more cleaning staff to facilitate more sanitisation equipment and infrastructural improvements to ensure physical distancing and ventilation.

“If one of the driving factors of the return to face-to-face school was to address education deficiencies, that objective will not be met if significant numbers of children are at school but are not being educated due those infrastructural challenges,” said Moore.

“We know that one secondary school is challenged with major repairs which have not yet been completed. The judgement will have to be made whether the alternative physical environment is safe and comfortable environmentally for students and staff  to return versus those children and teachers continuing online learning for another week, despite its psycho-social and education deficiencies. Perhaps a smaller complement of students can have a ‘test run’ at the school as a temporary solution,” she suggested.

The parent advocate said a brief debate about the staging of mindfulness sessions in schools as opposed to traditional prayers was merely a distraction and a “tempest in a teacup”.

Instead, she said authorities ought to be addressing the apparent absence of adequate plans to mitigate COVID-19 transmission and identify potential outbreaks early.

“We note there have been prior school outbreaks before the highly-transmissible Omicron variant. Will there be a list of ‘COVID-compatible symptoms’ from the Ministry of Health to which parents and schools can refer?” asked Moore.

“In other school systems that list (which included headache, diarrhoea, vomiting as well as the usual respiratory symptoms) –  is disseminated  by the education authorities  to schools and parents, and the resources are in place to identify and monitor children who exhibit these symptoms including not allowing them to attend school and obtaining medical clearance for return to school,” she suggested.

As such, Moore underscored the benefit of examining the experiences of CARICOM countries, many of whom started the face-to-face journey before Barbados.

“We note the challenges in St. Lucia, which opened their schools and closed them twice due to COVID-19 outbreaks,” noted Moore.

“Thus, being always constructive and solution-based, we strongly urge the Barbados Cabinet to consider adopting a version of Antigua’s national model, where additional funds were allocated to fund pandemic-related additional expenses needed specifically for public education.

“This included identification of at-risk children, provision of hard copy education packs where online access was not available, education monitoring and remedial summer school. Targeted psychological support was addressed as well, utilizing this national pandemic education fund.

“Yes, we recognise the perpetual strain on the public purse in the pandemic, but the confluence of national education and public health is too important not to optimise resource allocation,” she added.

Finally, the parent-advocate sounded the alarm on the “unnecessary” stress being placed on teachers to proceed “as normal” with the preparation of students for Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) exams

“We risk further acceleration of lack of public confidence in public schools and further privatisation of secondary schools, if the public education resources and CXC governance issues remain unaddressed. This will result eventually in the widening of socio-economic disparities. Public education reform is long overdue,” she warned. (KS)

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