Bunting makes plea for private schools as Smurfs goes under

WESTERN BUREAU:

THE GOVERNMENT has been charged to offer a special subvention to private schools for the payment of teachers’ salaries amid the financial fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, the Opposition spokesman on education has said.

Based on the Ministry of Education’s budgetary allocation for 2020-2021, the nation’s approximately 25,000 public-school teachers are to be paid J$117 billion. However, Peter Bunting believes that if the country’s 8,000 private-school teachers were paid J$100,000 a month, it would cost the Government an additional J$9.6 billion.

In advancing his position during a visit to the Heinz Simonitsch School in Rose Hall, St James, on Monday, Bunting said that private schools should be kept afloat to counterbalance the already high enrolment in public institutions.

But that warning has come too late for Smurfs Early Childhood Centre, whose founder and CEO Norma Reid has called it quits after 31 years of operation. Schools have been closed since March 13 because of coronavirus restrictions, and some, like Smurfs, have become casualties of time and revenue shortfalls.

“I just can’t manage it,” she said in a low tone. “This is a blow. It’s so hard because it’s like losing a loved one. It really is hard.”

The centre has approximately 80 students, including the infants enrolled in the day care.

But buffeted by gusty financial headwinds, Smurfs has decided to pull the plug before it was too late.

“Most of them should have found schools because my secretary has been busy trying to help refer them to different schools and provide them with recommendations,” Reid said.

IGNORE TO YOUR PERIL

Bunting believes that the contribution of private-school teachers should not be slighted at this time.

“I think the Ministry of Education can’t ignore the contribution of the private educational system. It is too significant, and you get more out of the system if the two bodies work in a complementary way rather than in an almost competitive type of way,” he said, repeating rhetoric he has plied in Parliament in recent weeks.

“To me, during this crisis, the ministry has to support the private education institutions, whether you pay the teachers for six months to a year, or whatever. The timing is for normalisation to take place.”

The Jamaica Independent Schools Association has appealed for government assistance in keeping the doors of institutions open.

Reid said that Smurfs’ parents had expressed challenges paying fees before the pandemic and that the financial forecast was bleak.

“The new protocol is going to call for a lot, and I had to look at the viability of it. If you’re gonna have 10 children in a class with two teachers, how will that go?” she asked.

Reid has great memories of her past students and is proud of decades of achievement.

“A lot of them keep in touch, so that keeps me going,” she said. “A couple of them went to the Olympics. We have a pilot, we have lawyers and doctors as past students.”

editorial@gleanerjm.com