The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

HEALTH and Wellness Minister Dr Michael Darville said Family Island schools have the capacity to resume face-to-face learning or a hybrid model soon.

He said officials “will definitely come together” and begin to roll out a programme for each island.

He told reporters that he and other officials have nearly completed their tour of assessing the Family Islands.

“Our job is to find out exactly what we can do to begin some sort of face to face or hybrid model for education. Now that is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education. My job is to make sure that when we make a decision, and one that doesn’t fit all, which means that the decision we may make in Bimini may be completely different than the decision we may make in Inagua.

“So it’s important that we come up with a strategy to make sure that the healthcare protocols that we’re putting in place that the Ministry of Education facility has the capability to be able to implement what we are requiring because our children’s health and safety is very important and we intend to do it in a very systematic way.

“But I’m pleased to report that many of our Family Islands schools are, the numbers are low, and there’s not a lot of individuals in a classroom and they have the capability to launch a hybrid model or even probably face-to-face in very short order once some basic repairs are done at the school and some additional preparation that I need to do in our clinics are in place. We will definitely come together and begin to roll out (a) programme per island.”

Public schools opened this school year with a virtual learning format due to a spike in COVID-19 cases.

Earlier this week, Minister of State for Education and Technical and Vocational Training Zane Lightbourne said the ministry hopes face-to-face learning will resume by the end of the year. He also revealed that some 15,000 out of 50,000 students have “not been consistently identified on the system” as attending online classes.