Let’s Catch Up Summer Program Helping Students to Gain Ground on Lost Time Due To COVID

Earlier we heard Minister of Education, Francis Fonseca speak about the rollout of government’s free education for the southside program. The minister explained that the program will include more and more schools with each passing year. But he also spoke with us about a countrywide summer program entitled Let’s Catch Up that the ministry is holding, all focused on filling the gaps that the COVID-19 pandemic created when schools had to be shut down.

Francis Fonseca

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education and Culture

“That has received very well. We’re very pleased with the results of that program, but (there’s) a lot more work to be done, and I remain absolutely concerned about the state of our education system and in particular, about the learning gaps that have developed over the last few years. Losing almost two years of face-to-face education, meaningful education, can have a dramatic effect, a very negative effect on the development of young people. So we are very concerned that. Everything we’re doing at the Ministry of Education is focused on catching up, on filling those gaps that have been left behind because of these two years, so a lot of work is going on in that regard.”