By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

EDUCATION Minister Glenys Hanna Martin says thousands of students have still not returned to campuses since schools were reopened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

She expressed “grave” concern about the high number of school dropouts and described the situation as a serious crisis during her budget contribution in the House of Assembly.

The minister called for “all hands on deck” to address the issue.

She also revealed that her ministry plans to reach out to those students in the days ahead to either get them back in the classroom or, depending on the students’ ages, encourage them to take advantage of summer educational programmes being offered by the Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute (BTVI).

 “We have now collected through the record in the EMIS (Education Management Information System) and it took a while because they had cross reference with the schools to make sure the record of EMIS was absolutely correct,” she said.

 “We have obtained the full listing of students, their addresses and contacts who have effectively dropped out from school, some of whom are now adults because they probably should have graduated last year or the year before.

 “But, Madam Speaker, teams will now reach out to those young people in the next ensuing days to strongly encourage them either to reintegrate into the mainstream school system and if they’re in that age group, they’re going to have to do that or depending on their age, take advantage of an attending free of charge programmes to be offered in the summer by BTVI.

 “So, we are going to be almost evangelists with these young people to get them back on track because if they meander in the wilderness, it will be a disaster.”

 With education being a key priority for this administration, she said the government has set its sights on increasing the public school attendance rate to 95 percent by December.

However, Mrs Hanna Martin said achieving the goal has become challenging due to the increasing number of students dropping out of school.

 “I don’t think we’ve seen that rate even in the best of times,” she added, “but what we are now facing, however, in terms of the alarming numbers of children and young people to whom I have previously referred numbering in the thousands who have effectively dropped out of school during the pandemic and have not returned has taken us well beyond what has been described as a previous chronic norm,” she said.

“What we are seeing now in terms of the sheer volume of children missing from school is a crisis and an emergency and is a matter of grave concern to the ministry and to the government and to the nation and we only need to open our eyes and listen and see what is happening around us to understand how important this is to get children back on track.”

 She also pointed to several initiatives created by her ministry to have students re-engaged, including community walkabouts targeted towards children who were otherwise absent.

 She said one walkabout saw more than 60 children identified and added that since then, nearly 1,000 public students have returned to schools nationwide.

 She also added that a study was conducted by the Department of Statistics to discover why children were not attending classes when they were being held virtually.

 According to the minister, about half of the people questioned in the government survey said they were either unable to sign onto the ministry’s learning management system or had experienced other challenges.

 Because of this, she said the ministry is now “seeking to build on the foundation already established by creating a solution which will generate greater ease of access for students” and make it more user friendly.

 “So, we had a system,” she continued. “We’re grateful for it but we found out that the children who were missing, almost half of them couldn’t get on or was facing difficulties. That has informed us now that we need to go back to the table to see by way of RFP, to see whether we can invite proposals that we can now measure in hindsight and in foresight in terms of what is required for effective delivery for our young people.”

 “In the meantime, though, we are grateful. The provider, one on one, in conjunction with Cable Bahamas is continuing to provide an interim solution.”

 During her contribution yesterday, Mrs Hanna-Martin also addressed concerns about the pandemic’s impact on education, especially as it relates to learning loss.

 Mrs Hanna Martin said urgent action is needed.

 The ministry has published a request for proposal to diagnose all students and create an instructional plan for recovery.

“The RFP invited expressions of interest, several of which have now been submitted. A committee to review the submissions has already convened to begin discussions and deliberations,” she continued.

 “It is intended that in August training can begin with teachers and in September when children return to school each child at every level will be diagnosed for learning loss and in respect to each child based on the levels of loss, they will have appropriately designed an acceleration programme to allow them to catch up.”

 However, in the meantime, she said public schools will host summer learning academies to provide “intense intervention” over a four-week period.