The Tribune

By TANYA SMITH-CARTWRIGHT

tsmith-cartwright@tribunemedia.net

AFTER a third day of issues with the Ministry of Education’s Virtual Learning Platform, Bahamas Union of Teachers president is calling on officials to “tell the truth” about the myriad problems plaguing the system.

After teachers were unable to access the system on the first and second day of the new school term, the Ministry of Education issued a statement, dated January 5, advising the public that the system was not working.

“The Ministry of Education wishes to inform the general public that its Learning Management System (LMS) experienced challenges on Monday, January 4, and Tuesday, January 5, 2021. The ministry wishes to apologise for any inconvenience caused as a result of these interruptions,” the statement said.

“Additionally, the ministry wishes to advise that in the case of such interruptions, schools and school districts have developed contingency plans which they are able to operationalise. From all accounts, schools currently engaged in virtual learning on the islands of New Providence, Abaco, Eleuthera and Exuma were able to activate their contingency plans, successfully, therefore keeping the loss of instructional activities to a minimum. Schools will continue to utilise their contingency plans until the challenges are resolved.”

However, BUT president Belinda Wilson said there is no contingency plan and the teachers are fending for themselves by using alternative measures.

She said: “While the Ministry of Education is pretending that there is a functional virtual platform and falsely claiming that thousands of students are online learning, and creating hype, sadly the children of our nation continue to have their educational experience negatively impacted.

“A large number of teachers use Zoom and Google Classroom platforms that they subscribe to personally. Most of the teaching and learning was done this way in 2020. This was done by initiatives and creativity from teachers unsupported by the Ministry of Education’s so-called platform.”

In its statement, the Ministry of Education said it has partnered with One on One/BTC to develop a customised LMS for its education system. It said over the Christmas holidays, One on One made a number of enhancements to the LMS in response to concerns and requests made by teachers, students and school administrators over the last three months.

According to the statement: “Generally, the MOE is happy with the upgrades and enhancements to the LMS. However, it appears that the challenges experienced on Monday and Tuesday resulted from those enhancements. One on One is working to rectify these system glitches.

“We remind the public that from time to time, similar systems challenges are likely to occur until this process is completed. Similar situations are being experienced by education systems globally. However, the MOE is confident that at the end of this process, we will have a more robust system to manage our on-line learning activities.”

For her part, Mrs Wilson said as soon as the Bahamas Union of Teachers recommitted itself to work more closely with the Ministry of Education in 2021, it is back to square one because of the malfunction of the virtual learning system.

She said: “There is an urgency to intensify training sessions for teachers to be trained on an operable platform. Again, teachers, students and parents tried to access the One on One LMS platform first thing in the morning and they received error messages and system maintenance messages. When will this fiasco end?

“The Ministry of Education needs to tell the country the truth about the myriad of issues associated with the LMS and EMS. The only way these problems are going to be resolved is if and when the ministry admits that there are major problems with this platform and seek solutions from proper sources such as their stakeholders.”

Mrs Wilson is urging the Ministry of Education to acquire a virtual platform that is operable and able to meet the needs of teachers and students in the public school system.

She continued: “In these hard economic times, millions of tax papers dollars are being squandered on an inadequate, ineffective, inoperable platform. Even more concerning is the fact that this is being allowed to happen at the detriment of thousands of public school students failing and being further disadvantaged. Intervention is needed and it’s needed now.

“What is it going to take to get change at the Ministry of Education – change in the modus operandi which is outdated and antiquated? Change in the curriculum that needs to be changed to meet the needs of the twenty-first century. Change in the way they communicate and change in the result of our students receiving an opportunity to reach their full potential. What will it take?”

She added that it is a sad day when teachers, students and parents are faced with the same issues they were faced with since March of 2020.