News reporting from across the Caribbean this past week has been weighted heavily in the direction of the decision-related challenges confronting governments at the beginning of the second consecutive academic year since the coronavirus pandemic has, for the most part, kept the region’s children out of the classroom. For all the contribution which the virtual classroom has made in enabling a degree of continuity insofar as the teaching/learning process is concerned, it is generally accepted in the region that, for various reasons, it has not sufficiently compensated for the loss of the classroom option.
Down the road, a more studied assessment of the deficit ought to be undertaken as a matter of urgency. It is almost certain that we will be pondering, worse, feeling the development-related consequences of the deficit in the not too distant future though hopefully, we may be able to muster mechanisms to reduce the impact of the backlash.
The start of the new academic year has brought with it, understandably, a circumstance of jitteriness, contemplation and chatter across the region. A year ago the paramount issue was doing what we could to fend off the coronavirus. A year later the issue of seeking to effect such damage control as we can, to try to minimize further loss to our respective education systems arising for children being out of the classroom has become a compelling issue. It is an issue that is almost certain to challenge regional leaders in the future.
Truth be told, the attempt that is currently underway to move as close as possible to as full a return as is feasible to across-the-board classroom tuition is proceeding on a wing and a prayer. At the one extreme there is the deep concern that we cannot afford to put classroom tuition aside for too much longer. Governments in the region, it seems are concerned that the education delivery deficit does not encounter further slippage. As it happens, however, we now know enough about the pandemic to be aware of its ability to make swift and disruptive interventions without a great deal of warning that could cause us to have to beat a hasty retreat into the laager from whence we came.
That said, it would be more than a bit harsh to ‘beat up’ on the authorities in the various Caribbean territories that are eager, if not desperate, to return to the status quo ante insofar as the accustomed classroom tuition regime is concerned. It is governments, after all, that bear the responsibility for delivering education systems that will contribute to taking the respective countries forward. This, of course has to be balanced not just against the risks, which are both unforeseeable and impossible to measure. There is, as well, what is almost certain to be a level of ambivalence among some parents and guardians and amongst the children themselves. With the best will in the world these factors have the potential to place a spoke in the wheel of even the very robust official intentions.
There is much wisdom in the caution issued by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Director Dr. Carissa Etienne on the matter of the reopening of schools. Not only does she want to see this done in a phased manner. She is also advocating a measure of flexibility, going forward, that allows for quick and pre-planned adjustments since, as she reminds us, the nature of the beast does nothing to hide the fact that the epidemiological status quo “can change rapidly” and that surveillance will be key to ensuring that reopening is done safely and that learning environments remain safe.” It is, one might add, a pointed caution against what, in Guyana’s particular instance, is an enduring propensity for simply putting mechanisms of one kind or another in place, setting these on auto pilot and afterwards, simply hoping for the best as far as their smooth functioning is concerned. It is an approach that goes decidedly against the grain of Dr. Etienne’s perfectly sound caution that “surveillance will be key to ensuring that reopening is done safely and that learning environments remain safe.”
In the instance of Guyana the question also arises as to whether the PAHO Director’s caution that the reopening schools be preceded by a scrupulous inquiry into whether or not (all schools) can maintain COVID-19 prevention and infection control measures, including physical distancing, hand hygiene, and mask wearing will be implemented and strictly adhered to. Here, precedent does not imbue us with a great deal of confidence and here it has to be said that Education Minister Priya Manickchand has to be seen to be providing a personal assurance that the requisite mechanisms are permanently in place and that they work. That is why she is Minister of Education.
What, in the particular instance of Guyana is unlikely to help at this time is what appears to be frenetic ‘cat-sparring’ between the Ministry of Educa-tion and the Guyana Teachers’ Union over whether or not unvaccinated teachers should be allowed to teach in the classroom. This issue has become attached to a broader national controversy on the matter of citizens being required to have themselves vaccinated. The most that can be said about that matter at this time is that it would be an overwhelming shame if a safe window of opportunity for the resumption of classroom tuition were to be torpedoed by a confrontation between Education Ministry and the union which, as the Teachers’ Union has apparently gone on record as saying, could lead to industrial action.
Here, the parties concerned must be mindful, as Dr. Etienne put it, of the danger of schools become catalysts for further “community transmission” of the virus. One can do no more than hope that both the government and the Union consider it a matter of national interest that an enabling environment be fashioned in which the nation’s children have the best possible chance of enjoying a full year in the classroom. What one must hope, further, is that Guy-ana now has sufficient resources at its disposal to at least begin to build the technological foundation that can move us closer to significantly lift the level of our virtual tuition capability, across the board, in the shortest possible time.