Too early to determine dropout rate as schools reopen – CEO

In light of the reopening of schools for complete face-to-face learning after two years, the Education Ministry will begin monitoring for dropouts.
Chief Education Officer, Dr Marcel Hutson told media operatives on Monday that with the doors finally open for physical learning, authorities will be able to gauge how many students dropped out of the education system. Thereafter, the Education Ministry can provide the necessary intervention.
“We will know how many of them are missing, if any at all…We will get a good opportunity now to see who is coming and who is not coming to school in terms of our students,” Hutson underscored.

The full reopening is being executed in a phased approach this week. By the end of the week, all classes will be accommodated into the system. Mechanisms to allow for safe distancing and sanitisation have already been implemented at the various facilities.
This month’s complete reopening comes more than two years after the COVID pandemic struck, forcing closure to reduce an infection spread. Previously, some classes were facilitated in the classrooms while others remained online.
A few months ago, the Education Ministry launched its Operation Recovery within the 11 education districts to find those primary school students who had been continuously absent from school and those who had missed the recent National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) mock examinations.
Earlier this month, Education Minister Priya Manickchand began consulting with stakeholders to expand the programme.
It was explained that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the education sector in two fundamental ways: loss of instructional time and learning loss due to schools being closed for over 18 months. Manickchand had said that, recognising the need to mitigate the long-term effects of school closure, the Ministry moved towards a phased reopening.
An analysis of learners’ attendance data revealed that some learners did not attend school as required. Operation Recovery aims to get pupils back into school, and the objectives of the programme are to locate and retain learners, as well as to engage and support them.
Through encounters with students, it was learned that the reasons for absenteeism range from poverty to “carelessness”. The Education Ministry has underscored that urgent, practical, sustained measures such as teaching and learning from a consolidated curriculum; the provision of textbooks; re-training of teachers; using technology in the classroom; and Operation Recovery would mitigate against the predicted loss to our students and country.
Meanwhile, 54 per cent of the students turned up for school in Region Six on the first day of the new school term.
Although some students had returned to school prior to this, some were required to attend face-to-face classes only on certain days. Just over half of the 11,217 students attended on Monday. The 6004 who attended represented 54 per cent.
The primary department had the best turnout with 2559 of the 4230, or 60 per cent attending. Secondary schools recorded the lowest turnout with only 2476 of the 5264 students attending.
In addition, 969 of the 1741 students attending nursery schools, or 56 per cent turned out to school Monday.
According to the Department of Education, both the nursery and primary levels recorded a 100 per cent teacher turnout while at the secondary level there was a 91 per cent turnout, giving an overall 97 per cent of the 2226 teachers in the region turning out for work on Monday.
There are 70 nursery, 57 primary and 16 secondary schools in Region Six.