Preparations are underway for the back to school period amid COVID-19 concerns. While parents are not against the idea of sending their children back into the classroom environment, they are citing several challenges and concerns.
The Ministry of Education, Youth, and Information in partnership with the National Parenting Support Commission and National Parent Teacher Association of Jamaica has planned a series of web sessions to address these concerns. Matters related to the blended approach were discussed at the recent session.
“Some schools will operate normally. We have in excess of 900 public schools in Jamaica and in some of my initial conversation with some of our parents of Region one we would have indicated that 411 schools will operate their normal school operations.” says Acting Chief Education Officer, Dr. Kasan Troupe. “Since then we have gone back to the drawing board – our thrust is to have more face to face engagement in our schools.”
Adding to this, the National Mathematics Coordinator, Dr. Tamika Benjamin notes that tertiary students have agreed to delay the start for new students for the new academic year.
“They will rework the academic calendar to allow teaching to go on into December then they do their end of semester exam,” said Dr. Tamika Benjamin. “The regular calendar will apply to the returning students. The models that Dr. Troupe would have described for the primary and secondary levels of the system, various institutions will apply similar models depending on their capabilities.”
