Education Minister Shawn Edward says the safety of students and teachers is at the forefront of his ministry’s priorities as a phased return to the classrooms in Saint Lucia begins on Monday.
“Not only are we concerned with the level of comfort we are able to provide to students, but in equal measure, the teachers matter, and we want to ensure they have the requisite tools to go out there and continue doing that fantastic job they have been doing in the COVID context,” Edward explained.
He declared that he was excited over the phased return to the classroom but admitted that the situation could never be ideal in the current COVID-19 environment.
But Edward said he was ‘very satisfied’ that at least some children could return to the classroom.
“The Ministry of Education has gone on a limb trying to explain a lot of the challenges we face having the children at home. Quite apart from instruction time being lost we have situations where children are finding themselves in situations they ought not to be in. They are falling prey to a lot of society’s ills, so as many of them as possible we can get into school, the better it will be for us,” the Minister asserted.
In a statement Thursday, the Ministry of Education said ‘Key grade levels’, including Kindergarten, Grade Six, and Forms Four and Five, will return to the physical classroom on Monday.
But it warned that any spike in COVID-19 cases might result in another closure of schools.
In addition, the statement announced the postponement of the reopening of special education schools and said the new date would be made public in the coming week.
Comments are closed.