The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

PUBLIC school officials are planning to manage school sites so they have fewer students on campus during national exams to mitigate against COVID-19 exposure, Director of Education Marcellus Taylor said.

He was contacted after the Bahamas Union of Teachers president Belinda Wilson urged the Ministry of Education to do a number of things, including closing schools in New Providence and the Family Islands where coronavirus numbers are growing, revert to virtual learning and revise a “workable plan”.

Mr Taylor told The Tribune on Wednesday that there was a meeting with unions in the sector, including the BUT, as part of the consultation process. Officials from the Ministry of Health and Department of Environmental Health were also present.

“Essentially we talked about the current status with COVID-19, what trends are being seen and how we are handling those and also we talked about some of the adjustments that have been made to the cleaning protocols following a positive COVID-19 case and then we talked some things we plan to do in education going into the last month or so of schooling,” Mr Taylor said of the meeting.

He said health officials acknowledged there were COVID-19 cases in schools, but said “they are handled very well and they’re satisfied with the way they are dealt with, but that was just a by-the-way statement,” he added.

Asked what adjustments will be seen in public schools and exams going forward, Mr Taylor responded: “We will send out a press release on that soon, but essentially it revolves around managing the school sites so that we have fewer students on school sites so that when we do the exams there will be less chances of any interruptions because the way the national exams work is you have synchronised it across the country and so if a school has a problem during the time of the exam it could mean that you know if that problem is only localised to that school it means those students wouldn’t get a chance to do the exams.

“Whereas if we manage it a little bit more closely with fewer people on the campus, fewer chances of cases coming up, we believe that we have a better chance of having more students get (through) the exams without challenge.…when we send out our press release we’ll have the details of it in it.

“One of the things that you might find of particular interest is that we may have a period where we only permit students to come on the campus for exams…. The emphasis at this point from the 25th of May going forward that’ll be our focus making sure we try our best to get the students through to the exams without great interruption.”

Mrs Wilson has suggested a reduction of school hours in the day and the number of students participating in face-to-face learning if any, but she said if there was going to be face-to-face learning, it should be the BJC and BGCSE examination candidates that attend school.

Asked about closing campuses on New Providence and Family Islands, Mr Taylor said: “It’ll just be largely open for the purposes of exams and students are not taking exams but it’s still time for them (to) of course (receive) their instruction through virtual means.

“Remember a lot of students at this point in New Providence, especially, are receiving their education in two locations – either on the campus or remotely.

“So that’s already kinda happening.

“What I’m saying is the emphasis at this point is on the exams and so the campuses being used largely to conduct exams…mostly the instructional will move to the virtual platform, but I’m leaving out some details simply because it’s just some details we have to work out.”