PM announces plan to assess how COVID-19 has impacted students

Thousands of secondary school students across the island will soon be asked to take a diagnostic test to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their mental health.

Prime Minister Mia Mottley disclosed on Monday that the “diagnostic instrument” would be introduced for students in third to fifth form so that tailored measures can be implemented, where necessary, to help them cope better.

Suggesting that the 2023/2024 Budget will make provision for this, Mottley highlighted the urgency of doing such, saying that further delay could result in major consequences in the future.

“I have asked the Ministry of Education to ensure that we can introduce a diagnostic instrument in every secondary school for every third, fourth and fifth former to see where they are. We are conscious that the greatest tragedy other than those who were directly affected physically or in their households by COVID and the loss of persons with COVID have been our children,” she said.

“We have to determine the status of each and every child because as I said when we passed the Education White Paper in 1995, each one matters. And we have to come up with an individual plan that allows us then to be better able to close the bridging deficit with each and every child because if we don’t do it now we will pay the price at some other point in our society and in our future.”

Mottley was addressing the opening of a mediation workshop at the Barbados Community College (BCC) on Monday, which was organised in collaboration with the Canadian-funded IMPACT Justice.

Giving the assurance that the diagnostic instrument was just not bells and whistles, she said the objective was “to ensure functional literacy, functional numeracy and to ensure the social and emotional targets are being attained by as many of our children as possible”.

The Prime Minister said a part of the initiative was to also get students to understand “what becoming an adult is like” as well as making choices and knowing when to walk away from contentious situations.

Her comments come against the background of rising mental health concerns and the level of crime affecting the country.

Declaring that “it cannot be business as usual now that the schools have started back pretty much on a regular routine”, Mottley raised concern about the learning loss as a result of the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is not an easy task and, therefore, we believe that before we get further into anything else in this school term that that diagnostic instrument is critical because it then allows the management of the schools, the principals and the education officers to make clear decisions as to what must happen,” she said.

At the end of 2021, a joint report by the World Bank, UNICEF and UNESCO warned that the current generation of students risked losing trillions of dollars in lifetime earnings at today’s value, as a result of the pandemic-related school closures.

That report also indicated that the percentage of students in “learning poverty” in low- and middle-income countries could rise dramatically, due to the lengthy school closures and inefficiencies associated with remote learning.

Meanwhile, Mottley has called on parents to have greater trust in school administrators and urged them to allow children to be confident in expressing themselves while being empathetic toward each other.

“If we believe that teachers have responsibility for the guidance and development of our children, then parents can’t be going into conflict with teachers in an unseemly way on school properties. There are ways to express your concern,” the Prime Minister said.

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