For a little over 3 weeks now, tens of thousands of pre-primary and primary school children have been engaging in distance learning using paper assignments and workbooks, as well as computers and the internet for those who have access.
It's a massive adjustment - and the sad truth is that many are left behind, while even those kids who have all the technology at their disposal can never get the same experience of socialising and learning that they get in a classroom.
But, the new reality has forced students, their parents, and their teachers to collaborate as best as they can.
Much of the responsibility is falling to parents who have to home-school their children with the help of the Ministry of Education. And so, in order to help parents make the adjustment, the Ministry held a literacy symposium to discuss teaching strategies.
7News stopped by and we spoke to a few of the officials about the objectives of the symposium. Here's what they told us:
Darlene Lozano - Education Officer, Belize District Education Center
"We're having a literacy symposium that will be in 2 parts, and the objective is to support parents and teachers, during the pandemic, as most of our students are at home. So, the homes have replaced the classrooms. And for this to be successful, we need cooperation. We need collaboration. We need a partnership between our parents and our teachers. And so, the symposium here to provide strategies, some support, some tips, some help for our parents. They getting the work from the teachers, and our teachers are sending them more than enough work four of our students. But, parents are not teachers. So, they may become frustrated or impatient when they feel the child is not moving the way they want them to move. Some parents might say, I don't have the skill. I am not a teacher; I'm a doctor. So, here we're giving tips to help. So, over the 2 days, we're doing tips in different areas. The objective is just to support, so that education, so that learning so that literacy - which is a priority for our Ministry of education can continue despite not being face to face within classrooms. For today, we started with literacy for healing. Many of us are frustrated. Some of us lost our jobs. So, we need to use literacy as a healing. Literacy is very powerful. So, we have literacy as healing, how to cope with all that is happening through literacy, through reading, through writing through speaking. Then, we look at parenting strategies for literacy success, what can you as a parent do at home for your child to develop literacy skills. Then, we examine technological pedagogical skills. So, we're saying you have the technology. You have your iPhone. You have your tablets, PC's, laptop. You have the internet. You have WhatsApp. How can we utilize these for learning?"
Tanisha Ross - Deputy Chief Inspector for Schools
"At times parents are becoming frustrated. Teachers too are concerned with the fact they have to learn to do certain things in order to disseminate the information out to their students, and how they can do so. And so, my focus was really to allow them to know that through social and emotional learning, we all need to collaborate with each other. We need to work universally because this is not just a Belize issue. It is an issue that we're all facing in the world."
