Belize’s Prime Minister John Briceño says his administration will not budge from its decision to have teachers and students return to the classroom by November 14 except in extreme cases.
Classes, particularly in the Belize District, have been severely disrupted following the passage of Hurricane Lisa last Wednesday with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Technology (MoECST) already indicating that it is the “only legal authority that can cancel or suspend classes”.
The authorities have been using this as a transition period in preparation for a full return to the classrooms by next week Monday.
Prime Minister Briceño said Cabinet made the decision for the resumption of classes having taken into consideration the time that students lost during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
But the Belize National Teachers Union (BNTU) has taken issue with the early return to the classroom, noting that there are still several factors to take into consideration before the resumption of classes.
“You have to consider the fact that while the school might be ready, the school didn’t suffer damage, are those teachers ready, are the children ready? So, it is not just to look at the school building to say that the building is impacted. Who did the assessments, because we visited schools and they are saying they haven’t seen anybody come in the schools to do any assessment,” said BNTU president, Elena Smith.
But Prime Minister Briceño during an appearance on a television program said “I don’t think there is any issue with BNTU and the ministry.
“What is going on is that it is the Ministry of Education that makes the assessment. They go out and make the assessment, the different school managements would come to the Ministry of Education and say these are my buildings that got affected and the Ministry of Education would go and take another look.”
He said Education Minister Francis Fonseca had explained to Cabinet that his priority “and it is a priority that our government agrees that we need to get our children back to school immediately.
“I know some teachers were talking about wanting another week off and we said absolutely not, you have to go back to the school. We need to get our children back to school that is why we said we are going to open schools on Monday.
“But obviously if there is a classroom that was damaged and the children can’t go in there then we have to make adjustments,” Briceño said, adding “our kids have lost almost a year and a half because of COVID.
“So, we have to get them back to school. Now a teacher, whose house was badly damaged and has to stay home to try to do some kind of work to get back, obviously we will allow that. But, we have been saying teachers need to go back to school. That is non-negotiable,” he told the television audience.
CMC
