With Government’s vision firmly set on making Barbados the number one education system in the world within the next seven years, Minister of Educational Transformation Chad Blackman says the proposed infrastructural, curricula, and technological advancements are paramount.
As such, Government will partner with international agencies like the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) “to ensure schools are fit for purpose” that they, amid the climate crisis, are resilient.
Speaking in the House of Assembly on Tuesday during debate on a money resolution for Parliament to approve Government’s borrowing of $313.6 million from China SINOPHARM International Corporation to expand the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, he reiterated the mission of the Ministry of Educational Transformation which he said is “simply about ensuring that we give our students and children who go on to be adolescents and adults, the best global chance of success” because “the real competition is about helping them to compete against their counterparts, not just here in Barbados and the region, but around the world”.
“Now, when you look therefore at being able to do all of these different things, these things require financing. This Government has been able to, and you see it around the country, ensure not just that schools are being repaired, but we are having aggressive programmes, partnering, of course, with a number of international partners, the IDB, for example, with our Skills for the Future II Programme where we’re not just looking at the infrastructure.
“. . . . I must add that our infrastructure is largely between 50 years old and 200 years old, and therefore, as we build out, it is really about changing not just the physical infrastructure in changing a door here or a cabinet there, or a classroom, but building schools that are fit for purpose for 21st century learning and realities. That therefore means, given particularly that we’re in this part of the world on the front line of the climate crisis . . . schools that are resilient.
Climate crisis
“We only need to look very close by to our sister nation of Jamaica. And it’s not just Jamaica. Countries around the world, particularly in the tropics, who are on the front line of the climate crisis with hurricanes or cyclones, continue to face these realities, and therefore, the building of schools now require even more that we have resilience at the core of our building and our designs to ensure that they’re fit for purpose, to withstand as much as possible, whatever the environment will bring,” said Blackman.
The minister then said the design of schools must change to “allow for new modes of learning and teaching”, so instead of the traditional way of teachers at the front of the classroom and the children sitting facing her/ him, it could be them standing and engaging or being on the outside, “in plants that reflect beautiful environments, physical environments that are wholesome, pleasing to the eye and that brings our education system now into a modern era that can now be a model for the world to adopt”.
“We set a very bold, but clear ambition to be the number one education system in the world within the next seven years, and part of this transformation, particularly with the programme I just outlined, is to also do so through ensuring that our schools have the necessary infrastructure, technological and otherwise, to keep our children on the cutting edge of transformation,” he said, before referencing the move to online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Blackman said the proposed education transformation exercise required Government to “have the necessary elbow room” and fiscal space to be able to deliver. He said with Government’s management of the country’s economy, there was confidence from agencies around the world and “people are prepared again to invest in Barbados” to allow Government “to build out the capacity of your health care institution” as the resolution being discussed. (GBM)
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