By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

EDUCATION Minister Glenys Hanna Martin says her ministry has recruited a number of trained and retired teachers to assist with staff shortages on Abaco, days after teachers on the island demonstrated by protesting the issue.

According to Mrs Hanna Martin, the ministry will only be engaging retired educators until more teachers can be permanently hired by the government.

While she was unable to say how many teachers will be engaged, Mrs Hanna Martin said it was her hope that this new “injection” of workers will help reduce some of the strain many teachers at Patrick J Bethel High School were facing.

The minister also revealed that officials expect face-to-face learning at the school will resume this week in a phased approach.

“As you know, we’ve been experiencing teacher shortages at that school,” the minister told reporters before going to Cabinet yesterday. “That’s a legacy issue and we’ve been seeking to address it and the engagement of teachers is underway through the public service system, but in the interim, we have recruited what we call supply teachers who are trained, experienced teachers - some of whom are already retired and have agreed to come back.

“And we expect that during the course of that week, that school will begin for the first-time face to face instruction in a phased basis starting with grade 12 on, I think, Wednesday and Thursday and building with the other grades so this is a great breakthrough for the children, teachers and the community that surrounds that school – Patrick J Bethel.”

Teachers, parents and students gathered outside the PJB High School last week with picket signs protesting the lack of sufficient teachers at a school of more than 500 students.

Weeks earlier, a group of parents in South Abaco held a similar demonstration in protest of the lack of teachers at James A Pinder Primary School.

“We need teachers and we need them now,” concerned parents chanted in a video seen by The Tribune.

Their demonstrations came a month after Mrs Hanna Martin promised action during a PTA meeting in Abaco on February 2.

Yesterday, Mrs Hanna Martin described the shortage of teachers as a nationwide issue that her ministry is actively seeking to address.

However, she said the situation in Abaco is especially challenging due to housing concerns there following the passage of Hurricane Dorian in 2019.

She also explained the difficulties her ministry is experiencing in finding teachers in specialised areas.

“The issue is there are shortages in key areas like generalists which are primary school teachers who can teach all kinds of subjects and then English and mathematics and so the dilemma is not so much physical bodies, it’s finding key teachers in key areas where there is scarcity and so we have to consider as how we move forward, how we can cause the training of teachers in specific areas to meet the demand required in the nation.

“So, we’re working on it and we will seek to ensure that children are not compromised by this concern,” she added.

The minister also said her ministry is hoping to incorporate diagnostic testing of every child very soon to ascertain the extent of learning loss in the country.

“They’re​ still designing it because that is very important and the design shapes what we are seeking to get and how we manage or test or judge the response and so the Ministry of Finance is helping us with that and we are told that by the end of the month, that process will be complete. We are hoping by the end of September we will move beyond the intermediary steps and we will be able to begin the diagnostic testing of children,” she said.