A Date is Set for Pre & Primary Schools to Reopen for Distance Learning!

Patrick Faber

At the press conference, the Ministry of Education announced the dates for the reopening of schools, but for distance learning.  This is where the students will be assigned work, through course sheets or online, but will not attend school for face-to-face learning.  The month of September, according to Minister Patrick Faber, will serve as a learning recovery period where assigned works will be used to determine the learning level of the students and provide them with work and feedback to bring them up to the level they need to be.  The distance learning re-openings vary from level to level with pre-primary and primary schools set to begin lessons on September seventh.  Minister Faber is also calling on schools and their managements to help subsidize costs for printing materials for the paper-based lessons. The ministry is committing five dollars per student with the expectation that schools will chip in to cover the costs.

Patrick Faber, Ministry of Education

“This afternoon I am proposing that we start with the re-opening of schools for distance education only on Monday, September seventh, 2020. Again, this is for distance only for pre-schools and primary schools. For secondary schools, we are proposing the date of Monday, October fifth. These proposed dates are for distance education only. The official start date for those students approved for doing home-schooling is Monday, September seventh and we will know already that tertiary level institutions have already been given approval for them to start online. So, what do we mean when we say distance only?  For pre and primary schools, this distance education means that we will primarily focus on paper-based learning so that pre and primary school teachers will develop learning activities and assignments for students based on the school’s curriculum and available student text books. You know the government has free text book programme in the Ministry of Education and this is what they will use. You’ve heard me say that the school will pre-pare home-based learning packages and I can hear our teachers and those schools already saying well how will we get this to them? You remember the last time the government paid for the materials that were circulated for home-based learning. Well, this time we are asking for the schools to do it and as a result of that the government will make available five dollars per student so that a very economical package can be put together for every student. This will be done via the management of schools so it will be five dollars per student.”