*She said: “I strongly recommend that the Ministry of Education stop, review, cancel, pause and consider students having the opportunity to repeat the 2020 school year and that the social promotion practices cease forthwith. It is so sad, but true – the educational system has failed the children of this nation over and over and over.

“The results of the 2020 BJC and BGCSE National Examinations is not a surprise. From the onset I advocated for the sitting of the exams to be cancelled and that the students be awarded predicted grades. If this method was used, as it was used in the United Kingdom and in 160 countries and 10,000 institutions, then 100 percent of our students would have received grades.*

The union president just continues to show why she is one of the biggest causes of failure to our education system. What has she done over the years to help make our education better? Can't name one thing.

Then she suggest that BGCSE exams grades be predicted? WTH? Is she serious. Predict what grade a child would get if they would sit an exam and then give them that grade without sitting the exam? Guess now why we see why our students are getting the D average. Nuff said. That's a merry christmas for you

Much agreed. You can now see why society is in the state that it is in today.

I have never heard such foolishness in my life. Giving students the predicted grade will surely teach them the value of hard work lol.

Predicted doesn't mean you automatically pass. Predicted could be a bad thing, imagine if you were told, no notice, that nothing you do from this day matters and your reward is only based on what you've completed already.

Predicted is based on the work you completed. If you were a stellar student you get an A. If you goofed around for the first 2 semesters you fail. The student should have an option to attempt a final exam if they want, smart boys for example are known to goof around but coming out shining at exam time.

Teachers are experts in giving predicted grades.
Predicted grades are given in proportion to gifts awarded by parents. Most notably in the primary schools where there is no BJC to keep anyone honest.

In the private schools teachers are routinely fired if they do not award passing grades. Most dole out so called gentleman Cs. Even that is a problem , as grade inflation is happeming nowadays.

Employers are growing wary of so many useless degrees, including bull sheet doctorates in education and business.

When all hope disappears justify the keeping colonialists' schools around. The colony's education minister Comrade Jeff reappears. **Shakehead** a quick once for upyeahvote, a slow twice for not?

As a person representing educators Ms. Wilson should help to.come up with solutions to the problem. Educators are on the frontline. So, they should have ideas. It's not helpful to anyone to just criticize.

With regards to the poor performance compared to prior years, Helen Keller could see this coming. Covid-19 along with a terrible plan for virtual learning, did a number on the students. I don't understand how children in the public school system can survive. Some of them come from very low income households with no tablets and/or access to the internet. Given the economic downturn some of them live in homes where the electricity would be disconnected. So, how does a child in that scenario learn virtually. The Ministry of Education has to implement ideas that can reach persons in households with little to no income. Anything short of this is a national failure. What is really ridiculous is the children fell through the cracks while the government talked about a $20 million sidewalk project and giving money to small business owners. Just mindblowing!

No matter what happens 90% of these students will be disadvantaged. They would have missed instruction in some critical learning they will need to excel at the next level.

Either that or they will voluntarily repeat. The problem with repeating is, we een sure that's gonna work either. COVID os still here. These kids could lose 2 years. I guess the positive news is Bahamian kids tend to graduate at younger ages anyway.

What the govt should be planning is a reeducation program targeted mostly at those children who fell through the cracks. Get them interested in what they "could" be. Get them dreaming. Stop this pretending that everything went well and we did a wonderful job substituting virtual learning. Mr Lloyd said he's "pleased". No, we have a problem. Nobody caused it, but let's fix it.

I totally agree with Belinda Wilson's recommendation that the Ministry of Education repeat the 2020 educational year and stop social promotion in schools!

Even I had enough foresight to recommended here several times that the school year should be totally canceled until some form of normalcy returned.

Only an ideological fool could possibly think children could adapt to online learning under the duress of a pandemic, lockdowns, parental upheavals, food shortages, etc, etc, etc. It is unfair to expect children to perform under such stressful situations.

The first thing education minister Jeff Lloyd should have done in March would have been to contact Belinda Wilson to strategize the way forward through the pandemic. It may have been obvious that the school year is canceled.

Unfortunately, Mr. Lloyd fell victim to the "know it all syndrome" that immediately affects our MP's on election night, and the countries children have suffered undue added stress for his lack of humility and common sense!

As the new 2021 year approaches think about the change still possible reach in which folk in life's road our colony's youth takes? **Shakehead** a quick once for upyeahvote, a slow twice for not?
- Court Cam: Judge recognizes Defendant -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VRx0GR…

Why does Belinda not object to hiring of Cuban teachers when there are often suitably qualified residents living in the Bahamas. So often Cuban teachers have difficulty speaking understandable English, have no loyalty to the system, do not spend or fully interact with the local community and realise that there is no comeback should they not perform becausethey will be returning back to |Cuba laden with electronics etc. This is not a total answer to the present situation but does have an effect on the overall results from students.

Perhaps you, Minnis and Lloyd can explain why the average Cuban student in Cuba's public education system is receiving a much superior quality of education compared to the average Bahamian student in The Bahamas public education system. And there's an abundance of well qualified Cuban teachers who speak fluent English and would be only too happy to make The Bahamas their new home.