By LEANDRA ROLLE
Tribune Staff Reporter
lrolle@tribunemedia.net
EDUCATION Minister Glenys Hanna Martin said her ministry is seriously concerned about the increasing number of teachers who are opting not to be transferred to the Family Islands amid a shortage of specialty educators on those islands.
Speaking during yesterday’s weekly press briefing at the Office of the Prime Minister, Mrs Hanna Martin reiterated that officials are seeing shortages in such core subjects as English, mathematics and science.
She added that officials are aggressively working to address the chronic issue by hiring more workers.
“These are the critical areas,” she said. “And then, of course, you have like the technical skills, that’s always a concern but the major thing we’re facing right now is language arts and English teachers and we’re trying very hard, very hard.
“We know that there are islands now that are still experiencing deficits. We are aware and we are concerned and also, we’re still hiring teachers through the system and I’ve spoken to the (public service) minister of state. She understands the urgency. The minister himself understands the urgency and we’re working with the Public Service Commission to prioritise teachers to get them through this system, the bureaucracy and to get them on the ground and to get them on the ground and transferred.
“The other concern we face, and this is a major one and it’s sort of a new phenomenon - many teachers don’t go to the islands,” she also said, adding that in the past, teachers were more welcoming to the idea of being transferred to these areas.
“This is not the same as before,” Mrs Hanna Martin continued. “Usually when the government recruits teachers, they understand we’re an archipelago - and everybody is entitled to education and we’re finding that a lot of teachers do not want to go, particularly in places like Abaco, where it’s post hurricane, and also high cost of accommodations and high cost of living, I’m told, and then the smaller cays where you realise that sort of reduced circumstances in terms of access, etcetera.”
Because of this new reluctance from educators, she said officials are now trying to ensure that new recruits are aware that the profession is not solely Nassau-based.
“So, this is the thing and we are trying very hard as we recruit, to ensure teachers understand we didn’t hire you necessarily to go to school in New Providence. Your role is to pursue education throughout this nation,” she added.
“That’s our role. That’s our duty. That’s our undertaking so that is something that we’re working on now, to shift this paradigm.”
The move to secure more teachers comes as the ministry prepares to have students tested for learning loss.
Testing exercises were originally due to start in early October, but were pushed back to November.
Acting education director Dominique McCartney- Russell said the delay was because a team to facilitate the exercises had not yet been assembled.
But, according to Mrs Hanna Martin yesterday, the ministry has since made headway in this regard by hiring a project officer who will oversee the process.
She said the next step will include the training of teachers.
“A company has been selected and we have identified, appointed or contracted a project officer who is a former distinguished educator – Bahamian. She will marshal the entire process,” the education minister added.
“The next step is that we will train teachers who will assist in rolling out the testing and they’re hoping we can do it simultaneously, not one, one and one so we can test across the board in a short period of time and once we’re able to measure what is happening in each instance, there will be programmes designed to help accelerate the learning loss.”
Education officials have previously lamented the pandemic’s effect on education as quite severe with data showing significant learning loss.
This is largely due to classes being held in a virtual format for most of the pandemic as opposed to an in person setting.
“This is a peculiar type of loss,” Mrs Hanna Martin also said yesterday. “It’s not normal loss and it’s something to do with the big gap and the blackout that happened in the pandemic. The fact that many young people have not been online or were online but were not really online, and couldn’t function online but this is happening all over we’re seeing this issue, and it’s seeking to be in front of it and so I’m hoping that in another couple of weeks, we’ll be able to identify a date certain when the testing the rollout.”
Asked yesterday if testing will begin next year, Mrs Hanna Martin said she was hoping for the exercises to start before then, but acknowledged that it could begin in 2023 with schools set to go on Christmas break in December.