Education Minister Jimmy Prince has dismissed the May 18th date being bandied across some social media circles as “leaked information.”
Speaking exclusively with Asbert News Network, the minister explained the document that was circulated could have come from one of the recent meetings held to talk over the possible scenarios for re-opening schools.
“The proposal was that you’d bring something to the meeting and then we’d discuss it and then say, ‘well, no we can’t do it that time; we can do it this time.’
“That was a preliminary [date] for discussion and somebody went and leaked it. So it may or may not be that time. I don’t think it would be that time because I don’t think we would get everything in place for that time. But that was just a target date. Because if you’re doing a strategy you have to set down some dates and then work around them,” Minister Prince said.
The Education Minister again affirmed, “somebody in the meeting with the Ministry of Health must be just send that out and said, ‘this is when we’re going to reopen,’ but that was just one proposal that we discussed. They [Health Officials] said school could only open if all the conditions are met. So if they’re not met by that date then we can’t open on that date.”
Previously the Minister told ANN that amongst the initiatives being undertaken to ready the nation’s schools for their eventual re-start were the installation of hand-sanitization stations as well as a programme to ensure that school environs are cleaned.
Amongst the dates captured on the unofficially released document were the 2020 SBA submission deadlines for CAPE, CSEC and the CPEA exams listed as June 16, May 23 and May 29 respectively.
While the proposed dates for the CPEA, CSEC, CAPE and the Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence (CCSLC) final exams were also listed, no date was provided for internal exams nationwide since the suggested promotion strategy for primary and secondary school students would be based on “remediation.”
“Where students have to make subject choices, the Terms I & 2 assessments would guide such placement,” a notation in the comments section of the document clarified.
Also included were recommended dates for the end of this year’s 3rd Term – June 26 – when the cessation of “all online and face to face teaching” is expected as well as the “commencement of the summer vacation” which was set for June 29, 2020.
According to the leaked document, the 2020/2021 school year would begin on August 10, 2020 with the teachers’ professional development week and in class instructions set to start one week later on August 17. Mid-term would be from October 26 – 30 and the term would end on December 18 before the Vincentian school population head home for a two-week Christmas vacation instead of the usual 3 weeks.
By the end of the 2021 school year some measure of normalcy would have returned to local school operations, the projected dates inferred.
2 Comments
Why is there a big secrecy around re- opening of school. The sooner it is announced the greater the preparation of the public in making arrangement for the kids to return to school.
It is also evident that MOE need to facilitate e-learning sessions for teachers. Online learning is a great supplementary tool to enhance learning and teaching, once it is strategically used and implemented. It can be usedone to free up face to face session for non- core disciplines AND allocate much needed sessions to deficiencies in English, maths; science.
If we learnt nothing else from COVID 19, we learnt to prioritize! !
Like!! Thank you for publishing this awesome article.