Amid wholesale destruction, Hurricane Irma presented opportunities for improving education in the territory, according to Dr. Marcia Potter, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education and Culture.
“Pre-Irma, we were getting involved in technology in the schools,” Dr. Potter said last Thursday during an education-stakeholder meeting on the territory’s hurricane recovery plan. “Looking at the opportunity that Irma presented, we didn’t have the physical textbooks that we needed [but] we had a lot of interest in education in this sector.” Though many physical materials were “gone in the blink of an eye,” some of them have been replaced with newer technology. For example, The Jarecki Foundation came forward to donate 650 Chromebooks for use by students.
Dr. Potter went on to discuss the November distribution of digital textbooks to students in grade seven and eight, which had been planned prior to Irma.
“By September of this year we are moving on to grade nine with digital textbooks,” she said.
‘Return to Happiness’
The PS added that the psychosocial support offered through UNICEF’s Return to Happiness programme will be an ongoing project.
“We are working with agencies in the region to offer [this support] to children and adults,” she said.
She also explained that the ministry is now looking into curriculum reform after Irma, and requested feedback from stakeholders.
“Should we put more disaster risk management in our curriculum?” she asked.
The ministry has also been working with the Department of Disaster Management to develop the Safe Schools, Smart Schools project.
“Most of our schools were certified as Safe Schools, but we want to get our public schools certified as Smart Schools,” she said. “What ‘Smart’ means is that we are greener and doing all the things we need to do to be more resilient.”
School sites
Teachers brought up the fact that Ebenezer Thomas Primary School in Sea Cows Bay and Ivan Dawson Primary School in Cane Garden Bay are less than ideal.
Ivan Dawson, in particular, was badly flooded during the August rains, and in December, Ebenezer Thomas, also flood-prone, was identified for retrofitting under the Smart Schools programme.
In response, Chief Education Officer Connie George said, “We know that there is so much work that needs to be done on the infrastructure of our schools. We do have a view to use different specs and to have the schools aligned to resist and be more resilient to weather effects and greener, smarter. Right now we are only in the embryonic stage.”
She added that officials are moving on to speak with the principals of the schools that are being repaired and rebuilt to factor in their concerns.
West End schools
The permanent secretary also addressed the Leonora Delville Primary School site in West End, where students from multiple schools have been accommodated in UNICEF tents. The tents blew over in high winds this month, causing the cancellation of class.
At the time, Education and Culture Minister Myron Walwyn said rebuilding a school in that location was high priority, but he did not set a timeline to do so.
During the meeting, some teachers from the school expressed that it was unfair to expect them to work while standing in water.
“We had to use tentsbecause so many of our schools were damaged or totally destroyed,” explained Dr. Potter. “Some of the repairs were temporary repairs and some people were not happy with the repairs but at the forefront we’re getting students back to a sense of normalcy.”
Pressured to give a date for the rebuild of the West End site, Brodrick Penn,the chairman of the government’s Disaster Recovery Coordinating Committee, said, “One of the hardest things to do is give a date and never meet the date.”
However, he added that “quite a bit of work” has been happening to get the schools back. “It’s a situation I don’t think anybody believes for one moment that you’re comfortable [with],” he said. “Many of you may be aware that the government has sourced a loan for some of these immediate projects. Quite a bit of that loan is directly related to getting schools up and running. So within this year quite a bit of the education system will either be repaired or reconstructed.”
Private donors
So far, much of the funds for rebuilding have come from private donors, he explained.
“We have people coming forward and saying, ‘I want to help assist rebuild the schools,’” he said. “For instance, Enis Adams Primary School [which Road Town Wholesale founder Peter Haycraft is funding]. We have other donors on Jost Van Dyke. They are specific as to who they are giving their funds to.”
Asked whether schools will be rebuilt to serve as shelters as they have elsewhere in the Caribbean, he responded, “It’s a matter of good practice under the disaster management structure [that] they usually don’t make schools shelters for the very reason that they are critical building assets and necessary for the continued function of the country. So you won’t see us adopting that model that you see in other regions.”
Special education
Dr. Potter also spoke about the previously announced plan to integrate special needs students into the general student population, while also rebuilding the Eslyn Henry Richiez Learning Centre, which currently serves that population, from scratch.
She said the two aims are not in conflict with each other, explaining that the schools are “not fully equipped to deal with the extremes of special needs.”
“It would be unfair to me to put students on the extreme of the spectrum in schools who are not prepared to deal with those students,” she said. “Yes, we are looking at inclusion, but it’s something that it’s going to go over time.”
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