The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

EDUCATION Minister Jeffrey Lloyd said officials held meetings with education unions this week on the way forward for schools on certain islands that will return to face-to-face learning under a hybrid model.

He previously said public schools in New Providence, Abaco, Exuma and Eleuthera would not meet the February 1 target to resume face-to-face instruction as talks were still continuing with health officials.

Speaking to reporters at the Ministry of Education yesterday, Mr Lloyd said he met with Bahamas Union of Teachers, Bahamas Educators Managers Union, and the Bahamas Public Service Union on Wednesday.

“Yesterday we had a meeting with two unions…and we think we are on track for a time in February when schools in those four islands will return to the hybrid model, the blended model, because as we indicated the schools on those islands are not able to accommodate all of the students at the same time and still maintain the required health protocols,” he said.

“The protocols, remember those are established by health, and they are mandated by the emergency orders as promulgated by the competent authority, so that’s established. Nothing that we or the union or anybody else can do about that.

“What we are talking about in our discussion is how that is going to be applied in the Ministry of Education specifically and how that application is going to impact the teachers or the educators and (administrators) or, in the case the janitors or the other workers that form that part of the union – the Bahamas Public Services Union.”

The Office of the Prime Minister has announced the country is expected to receive up to 100,000 doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine beginning the second half of this month through the second quarter of 2021.

As for questions concerning teachers receiving the vaccine, the minister made it clear that the government’s position is that vaccines are not mandatory but voluntary.

“It is now a discussion with Cabinet as to which workers would be priority and I certainly know that teachers are among that category of workers that we consider to be frontline. We’re dealing with a host of students, so Cabinet is in the process of making that decision right at this moment,” Mr Lloyd said.