And one of the topics that will surely come up in that meeting with the BNTU is the safe return to normal classroom instruction. Children's education, socialization and mental and physical health have all been severely affected by the pandemic, and they are quickly approaching 2 continuous years of being out of classes.
Fonseca says the Ministry is determined to transition sometime soon from hybrid learning to in-class instruction. Here are those comments:
Hon. Francis Fonseca - Minister of Education
"Our position has always remained the same, health and safety of our students, our teachers, our administrators is priority number one, so we've worked very closely with the ministry of health to establish a very clear structure for how we return to the classroom in a safe and responsible way. We have a green light process, I think you all are familiar with that, schools apply, there is a very vigorous checklist that they have to go through, once they meet all the requirements of that check list then the ministry of education gives them the green light to open, it's a hybrid approach to reopening as you rightly said, they return for a few days into the classroom, other days there is remote learning and that will have to continue to be the way moving forward for a few more months but the objective absolutely is to get our students back in the classroom, we cannot continue to waste time, we lost too much time, we are losing a generation of young people, they are going to be out of the classroom for 2 years and we've heard all sorts of stories, I'm sure you have of families of the impact that has had, the negative impact that has had on the development of their children, so we've absolutely committed, that is priority number one, getting our students back into the classroom, that is something we will discuss with the union tomorrow to make sure that they on board with that, so it's absolutely critical for us to do that."
The Minister says that 92% of the nation's teachers are vaccinated.
