The Tribune

By KEILE CAMPBELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kcampbell@tribunemedia.net

NEARLY a year after announcing plans to introduce new student ID cards, education officials still have no clear timeline for the programme’s roll-out.

Speaking with The Tribune yesterday, Education Director Dominique McCartney-Russell attributed the delays to large student populations at some campuses.

She said the company contracted to produce the IDs are still taking photographs of students at various schools.

“It’s progressing very slowly, but it is progressing,” Mrs McCartney-Russell said outside Loyola Hall.

“Some of our schools have over 900 children, and so they’ve gone to a couple of the high schools already and they’re continuing that process.”

The digital student ID system, announced last July, was promoted by the Davis administration as part of a broader effort to enhance safety and security on school grounds.

The cards will be used to verify and regulate access to school campuses.

Education officials initially set a rollout deadline for last September and later revised it to May, but both targets have since been missed.

Yesterday, Mrs McCartney-Russell suggested that implementation would likely extend beyond the start of the next school year.

“I don’t think so, because it’s such a long process,” she said when asked if the IDs would be fully implemented by the next academic year.

She said the process would be a phased rollout, beginning with New Providence schools before expanding to Grand Bahama and the Family Islands.

“The goal really is to ensure that every child that’s on that campus is supposed to be on that campus,” she said. “We’re just increasing our security measures, and then doubling up with that – that helps us with attendance as well, monitoring attendance.”