But while Faber was onboard with that idea, he did have some criticisms for the new Ministry of Education. Apart from not continuing the work that the UDP had started with the distribution of free tablets, Faber said the PUP have failed to properly train teachers to maneuver through this technological age.
Hon. Patrick Faber, Leader of the Opposition
"The education system has got to adapt to how we make survivals out of our young population especially. What covid has taught us is that things that we thought were very far-fetch, speaking about it just now relative to exam takers and primary schoolers, but in general, things that we thought would not have been possible for our students, we have had to embrace, albeit, an emergency embrace and we now see that it is doable and so what I think we need to do in terms of education now is to help our students to transition, help them to embrace that concept of using the technology to create employment. In the press conference today, you heard me speak about not only depending on the current jobs that exists in our municipalities and in the wider government and playing musical chairs with those jobs, but expanding our horizons, because we can now be employed right here at home outside of our borders. that is what this pandemic has taught us, but another area where I think the education system needs to be and we need to pay attention and I think the current administration has fallen between the cracks in this, is training for our teachers. This is the month of August now and August is a month for continuous professional development and from what I've heard the ministry has fallen down completely in terms of offering relevant training opportunities for our teachers. Even in the midst of covid19 last year what the ministry did under my watch was try to create training opportunities that would see those teachers readily deliver electronic education to the students. We saw so many teachers getting involved. We had our partners from outside offer online training so that teachers can be ready, because many teachers in this country still have a phobia for the technology and so if they are expected to teach the students how to get over this hump and how to become productive in the world out there using the technology, they have to embrace it and I think that this month of August our education ministry is falling down again."
