The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

WITH Grand Bahama schools expected to open in a matter of weeks, Education Director Marcellus Taylor confirmed yesterday that 850 displaced students have already been registered and placed throughout schools in New Providence.

Mr Taylor said the ministry sought to enroll students in schools with available space and within close proximity to their living accommodations.

After Hurricane Dorian devastated Abaco and Grand Bahama last month, the Ministry of Education set up a public-school registration process to enroll the thousands of children displaced by the storm.

According to Mr Taylor, 1,200 students have been registered by the Ministry of Education so far and of this number, some 400 students are still waiting to be placed in public schools throughout the capital.

Asked why the registration process has taken so long, Mr Taylor told The Tribune officials wanted to verify storm victims’ identities, ensuring that there are no persons perpetuating false identities.

“Once we’ve registered a child in the school, we should have some kind of confidence that their identity is who they say they are. We wouldn’t want people to (enter these schools) who were not from Abaco and Grand Bahama or may have been in New Providence and are trying to ease their way into these schools based on this exercise going on.…This takes a while but we’re confident that we’re doing it relatively thoroughly,” he said.

For persons who remained or are returning to Abaco, Mr Taylor added that there are some public schools on the island that are partially operational.

“These schools might be running for half-day, but they’re running. We have some students who meet in Crossing Rocks and students who meet in Cherokee Sound and we will soon have students meeting in Moore’s Island. I think we have some students meeting in Fox Town which is in the north part of Abaco and as people move back, we are trying to be as flexible and move with them as they move,” he said.

Meanwhile, Education Minister Jeff Lloyd said he expected schools in Grand Bahama to be “up and running” within a few weeks’ time.

“We are now on the ground doing our final scopes and we understand that the technical teams and engineers as well as contractors that we’re looking at well a week to ten days from the moment of start to the conclusion and then schools will be ready to go,” he said outside Cabinet yesterday morning.

When asked if there will be any adjustments made to BJC/BGSCE examination dates as a result of the storm, Mr Lloyd replied that there will not be any changes made to set examination dates as it will affect the entire country.

“What we’re giving consideration to now is you know that there are days which we probably could eliminate such as professional days or there is the holidays, Easter, Christmas and you know fun days we probably could make some adjustments to catch up some time,” he said.