Above: Paula-Ann Moore

BitDepth#1314 for August 09, 2021

For a week, beginning on July 26, the Caribbean Association Principals of Secondary Schools (CAPSS hereafter) convened its 28th Biennial Conference as a virtual event hosted by Trinidad and Tobago.

It was both sprawling and inclusive, and this column is a stone skipped across the five-day pond of discussion and debate.

Instead of an extended deliberation by senior school administrators, CAPSS 2021 was a spirited virtual engagement between principals, teachers, parents and students in a dialogue that considered an educational landscape that’s been rendered almost unrecognisable over the last 18 months.

The first person I heard from was Tessa Smith, a mother of two girls, active in the PTA.

Smith’s elder daughter adapted to remote learning well, and sat and passed her CXC exams. But her younger child can’t stand sitting to stare at a screen.

“How do we bridge the gap for children who cannot connect,” Smith asked, “how do we deliver the curriculum?”

“I don’t know if all our teachers can deliver the curriculum remotely or if they have the tools to do the work that way.”

“There are students from homes with challenges for whom the school was a safe space.”

Speaking at CANTO’s 36th Annual Conference on July 28, Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly acknowledged the challenges faced by Trinidad and Tobago’s Education Ministry since March 2020.

In August 2020, the ministry had a list of 65,000 children who were without devices on the eve of the formal resumption of remote school nationwide.

It was a problem that the world faced.

Among school-age children globally, more than 1.5 billion children have had their education affected by school closures.

“Our processes that we follow in schools are a challenge,” Gadsby-Dolly said. “Something as simple as preparing an attendance register for submission daily to the Ministry points to the need for systems in the Ministry itself that need to be transformed.”

“What is happening is the best of what everyone can do, but it’s not exactly the optimised experience, and that brings some of the problems that we are experiencing.”

Another mother of two, Guyana’s Michele Fraser, pointed out challenges faced by teachers.
Fraser is a teacher and the immediate past president of the PTA of Guyana.

“When this began, we had teachers who said, I am not ready, I have my own children to take care of,” Fraser said.

“I teach math, and sometimes a student just doesn’t get it.”

“You might see it by looking at their faces in person, but that doesn’t happen online.”

“You are teaching and doing everything right and the student just isn’t getting it.”

In addition to connectivity issues, Fraser noted that parents who went back to work had to leave children at home alone to attend school, and students from marginal households had to get by without meals provided.

Limited availability of devices meant that some students attending school remotely would have to rotate use in a family to show up for class at all.

Paula Ann-Moore, well-known in Barbados for holding the Caribbean Examination Council’s feet to the fire of public opinion over its handling of examinations in 2020, said pithily that, “The pandemic revealed co-morbidities in the society as well as in individuals.”

“We remain wedded to high stakes examinations in the Caribbean,” Moore lamented.
“Children had to write exams while carrying all that stress. Students went into examinations stressed, and they were not pleased with their results.”

“Parents,” she insisted, “need to have a seat at the table in deliberations about education. It’s important to do things differently when everything has changed.”

“School is not just education, the focus post-pandemic must be less on the physical facilities of the building and there must be more emphasis on how education meets the needs of students.”

From my CAPSS notebook, items that didn’t fit into the column.

Students were asked to discuss two topics for one panel, “What are the tools needed to be successful in the 21st Century and can you access them,” and “School on the other side of the pandemic: Are students ready to transition.”
These suggestions emerged from their discussions.

“There is a need for teachers to be more flexible and resilient in their teaching methods and there is a need for more digitally focused teaching tools. Students might have all the devices, all the text books, and [they] do not have electricity.”

“Secondary schools should have mentorship programmes with businesses in the community to encourage analytical and business thinking.”

“Parents need to have a mindset that adapts to the circumstances so that they can support their children during the pandemic.”

“School is not just education, the focus post-pandemic must be less on the physical facilities of the building and there must be more emphasis on how education meets the needs of students.”

“The education format should be flexible enough to accommodate the different learning capacities of students who are challenged.”

“Education has to be less transactional and more inclusive, engaging more directly with the needs and interests of students.”

Some other notable quotes…

From Lyniss Pitt: “Our schools should become action research centres. It is there that we can design the real solutions that will guide us forward. The leadership must have the political will to drive the transformation that is required.”

From Renee Rattray, Ed.D of the Jamaica’s Teacher’s Association:
“We do not know the jobs that we are preparing students for.”
“We have teachers who are not working in their purpose. If you are clear on why you are teaching you will be better at what you do.”

From Sherra Carrington-James, President of CAPSS: “We need to gather the data on the Caribbean [education] context.”
“If you’re not at the table, you are on the menu.”