By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

Tribune Staff Reporter

lmnnings@tribunemedia.net

ONLY 35 per cent of public schools are registered with the National Accreditation and Equivalency Council (NAECOB), with officials hoping to register all public institutions by June, according to the Ministry of Education acting Director Dominique McCartney-Russell.

NAECOB officials held a press conference yesterday to emphasise the importance of registration and to urge parents to check the organisation’s website to ensure that the institutions they are evaluating are registered.

 Currently, 217 institutions are registered with the NAECOB, 113 of which are primary and secondary. Nineteen are post-secondary institutions, 29 are training institutions, 34 are educational programmes, 14 are recognised institutions, and eight are allied health institutions.

 According to NAECOB’s website, registration certifies that an institution offering or proposing to offer an educational service in The Bahamas has met the criteria for providing such services stated in the Education Act.

 “There are 159 schools and programmes in the public education system, and when we add, I think, about three or four more, we’ll have a little bit more, but those schools are required to be registered,” Ms McCartney-Russell said yesterday. “And to date, we have, I’m advised 35 per cent of them are registered and some of them are in the process of being registered.”

 She said NAECOB inspectors have assessed several public schools, inspecting infrastructure, staff qualifications, and student curriculum.

 She said the registration process is tedious and officials were informed of the need to register public schools after the law was passed.

“We have a lot of new officers in place, and they are not aware of what is being asked,” she said.

“You have to understand that public schools have been in operation before the request was made, and a lot of the items that are being asked, they are in compliance in terms of ensuring that they have, for example, qualified teachers, facilities that are conducive, so they have those things, but because of the law we are seeking to ensure that all schools are in compliance.”

 Laurena Finlayson, NAECOB’s senior accreditation officer, said: “We have students who wish to go off to school; if the school is not registered with NAECOB, students have lost scholarship opportunities simply because the school is not registered, so, you come in with a high school transcript and your diploma, but the school is not registered and we don’t recognise the school. And so, the children suffer if that is a choice by parents, unfortunately.”

 She said many home-based schools are not registered and are operating under the radar.

 “They are charging parents ridiculous amounts of money to sit their children at dining room tables,” she said.

 “Many of them choose not to register with NAECOB.”

 “We don’t tolerate it because we’ve found out about some of the institutions, and then there’s a problem. The parents then come to us and then they realise, oh, but the school isn’t registered, or why can’t my child take the national exams? We have had schools come and bombard us –– can you just give us a letter so that we can take it to assessment and examination, then we’ll register next year? We’ve had some institutions saying that to us from 2016 and still not registered.”