Education C.E.O. Comments on Teachers Strike

Since Monday, at eleven-thirty a.m., teachers effected strike action by walking out of the classrooms.  It comes just days after some students returned for in-person classes, after a year of distance learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet now, they are once again out of school. Education C.E.O. Dian Maheia gave News Five a one-on-one interview this afternoon. She says the students will be most affected by the strike.

Dian Maheia

Dian Maheia, C.E.O., Ministry of Education

“We know that the students have been out of the classrooms for a year and so many schools had been working so hard. We had fifty-five who reopened on April twelfth, they returned for face-to-face and by all accounts the return has been really good; children are happy. Social distancing in effect, mask wearing, hand washing, everything is in effect, but it has been a successful return so we are grateful for that. And we know that we have well over two hundred schools who have also been working really hard to get everything ready so they can return on May tenth. So this is unfortunate. It’s hard; it’s hardest I think at the end of the day for the students. They are our primary concern right now.”