What's Next For Schools?
Fonseca also spoke about the COVID-19 Education Task Force. It's their job to figure out when and how to open schools. They had their first meeting this week and the Minister discussed the priorities:
Hon. Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"As you know everybody wants to get back to school. Our students have lost a lot of time. Many of our most vulnerable students are falling behind. So all of us in education want to get back into the classroom, but we recognize that we have to be guided by the public health officials and our decisions have to be based on science and we have to take into consideration all the very real and legitimate concerns that our administrative staff have across the country. As I have said to everybody, the task force is there to hear your recommendations. If anybody, any citizen of Belize, any stakeholder wants to submit their recommendations, we are welcoming those."
Reporter
"Is any consideration being given to perhaps to re-open secondary and tertiary schools before the primary schools and the lower levels - just considering the fact that we are talking about more older mature persons."
Hon. Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"All those issues are on the table for discussion. Exactly that, how can we perhaps in a staged progressive manner re-open schools as you said perhaps looking at secondary schools first. Also I can tell you I had a meeting earlier this week at Stella Maris school, we are very concern about our special needs students who are particularly disadvantage by this Covid19 situation, because they need special one on one attention, so we are looking at our special needs students. We are trying to design a specific package for them to find a way for them to return to the school."
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