Munro chairman warns of learning loss time warp

Munro College Chairman Elias Azan has said that the loss of almost a year of schooling because of coronavirus restrictions could set back the country for decades.

His comment comes in the wake of this week’s closure of the all-boys high school in St Elizabeth after a COVID-19 outbreak.

The majority of Jamaica’s schools have not reopened for face-to-face classes since institutions were ordered shut in mid-March 2020.

“The effect on the economy and the society is going to be as bad as the brain drain that we experienced in the 1970s when those who were learned and achieved left the country and it left us with a gap. It took us 40 years to recover from that,” Azan declared on Wednesday.

Discussing various challenges facing students involved in online learning in rural Jamaica, Azan argued that a student who was only able to cover one-third of the syllabus would be at a serious disadvantage when sitting the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate exams this year.

“Our reality is that not more than 30 per cent are really being reached via online learning,” he said in a Gleaner interview.

“When that child fails his exams, how does he get into a college or university, and when he doesn’t do that and he comes to me in five years looking for a job and I match him up against a child who has gone to college, who am I going to choose?”

IN-PERSON CLASSES CRUCIAL

The Munro board chairman said that the inability of the education system to deliver online learning effectively has made in-person classes more crucial than ever.

Face-to-face learning was suspended at Munro this week after 21 students and two staffers tested positive for COVID-19.

He described as “rubbish” claims that students at Munro had COVID-19 from January and that the boys had been playing football at the institution.

Azan said that the school did not record a COVID case until February 4.

He said that from January 11, Munro had been carrying out testing for COVID-19 even though the students did not present with symptoms.

“We had an arrangement where because we are in a boarding facility, we take the precautions, and the ministry would come and test boys periodically,” he said.

Azan explained that on February 2, a lower-grade student reported not feeling well and was examined by the nurse, who discovered that his temperature was elevated. The schoolboy was immediately placed in an isolation facility.

The student later tested positive, and the Ministry of Education was informed about the development.

Azan said that 37 boys who occupied the dorm where the first student who tested positive resided were assessed. Of that number, 21 boys tested positive on Saturday. They were asymptomatic, he said.

The ministry later recommended that face-to-face learning be suspended.

Azan said that the students had been scrupulously observing the COVID-19 protocols.