In light of the educational fallout that has resulted from 18 months of primarily online learning modalities, Senator Peter Bunting, Opposition Spokesperson on National Security, says the Government of Jamaica’s poor planning should be blamed for learning loss.

According to Bunting: “At the start of the pandemic, many suggestions were made by the Opposition aimed at developing a strategic response to counter the long-term impact of the pandemic.”

He noted, that in his position as shadow minister of education and training, he called, from as early as April 2020, for “the establishment of a broad-based task force under the National Council on Education to assess and plan for the long-term impact of COVID-19 on the education sector”.

Despite this, no effort was made by the Government to implement the recommendations made, resulting in the “chaos and confusion” that continue to affect the sector 18 months into the pandemic.

Arguing that the country has lost some 120,000 students who are neither in school nor engaged online, Bunting stated: “Education is cumulative; each year builds on the lessons learnt last year. Those children who have been lost cannot just catch up later, the chain has been broken, and many of them are lost forever.”

He continued: “They will leave school not only without qualifications but uneducated and unemployable. This country will be living with the consequences for decades to come. This disaster could and should have been avoided.”

Jamaica commenced its second year of primarily virtual schooling on September 6, 2021, with the Education Ministry suggesting that a decision on the resumption of face-to-face classes would be made once individual secondary schools achieved a 65 per cent or higher vaccination rate.

The prospect of face-to-face resumption occurring sooner rather than later, however, took a turn for the worse, when the Ministry of Health and Wellness was forced to suspend the administration of the Pfizer vaccine, the only vaccine approved for persons under 18, due to insufficient supplies in country.