1,000 students have been fully absent from Public schools in The Bahamas for two years

The Bahamas Education Minister said close to 1,000 students have not returned to school!

Education Minister Glenys Hanna Martin said yesterday that an initial search has revealed that nearly 1,000 students have been fully absent from school for nearly two years prompting “major concerns” over potentially widespread learning loss phenomenon.

During her contribution to the mid-year budget debate in Parliament, Hanna-Martin said “thousands of children of all ages “fell off the radar” in a completely virtual learning environment in the last two years.

“We now know from global research that the effect of this is significant learning loss which unless arrested will have a severe impact on the individual lives of the thousands of children concerned and to the qualitative progress of our nation as a whole,” she said.

“It is a serious matter to find these “missing” children the Ministry took a squarely pragmatic approach.”

The education minister explained that a national multi-agency committee was formed with governmental and non governmental participants. The committee was tasked with mapping out a strategy for finding and bringing these children back into the safety net of education.

“In the first task, administrators, teachers, clerical, security and janitorial staff, and managers and union leaders and representatives and various NGO’s and I might add, even myself hit the streets door to door in communities nationwide, simultaneously, in search of these young people,” Hanna-Martin said.

“The exercise yielded the location and identification of almost 1,000 children who had been fully absent from school for two years. In our inaugural walkabout and launch of this initiative on January, 11th, in Freetown alone, almost 60 children were identified. Within days of that walkabout Uriah McPhee Primary School saw an appreciable increase in student attendance.”

She continued: “I reiterate the commitment that relying upon our database and upon any other information received we will seek out every child. We ask parents and guardians to work with us as there is no acceptable barrier that should separate children from a firm education. It is a human right and it is their hope of a happy and decent existence.”

All Children in The Bahamas are Entitled to a Decent Education

Bahamas:  Save Our Children for a Promising Future

By Dennis Dames

The Minister of Education - the Honorable Glenys Hanna Martin, has revealed that there are 8,000 delinquent students of the Virtual Learning Platform – who have been missing in action since the CoViD19 pandemic began. What a shameful social injustice.

The Minister announced that: An education recovery task force has been established and will have just 14 days to track down some 8,000 students who were inactive on the virtual learning platform throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s truly a correct step in the right direction; and we know that it will take more than 14 days to arrest the serious political and social challenges in the education of our children; which has been allowed to advance in to a national crisis over the last two years and counting - by inept political leaders, wayward parents, neglectful guardians and derelict communities.

It’s a clear violation of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights - by a country with the resources and capabilities to do better. It’s child abuse, abandonment and neglect on a wholesale scale in The Bahamas – in my humble opinion. The bitter harvest of social instability and decline is staring us right in our eyes, and we appear to be foolishly indifferent about it.

Our country – The Bahamas, is on the sure path of a failed state – where we proudly, carelessly and unwittingly breed and nurture antisocial citizens from young– in my view.

We seem not to care about the expanding vices in our nation - caused by youthful deviants, as we feel so safe and secured behind our security fences, walls, bars and gates – with cameras keeping watch of our respective properties 24/7. What a tragedy!

No one in The Bahamas is safe right now – in an unequal and unbalanced society of chronic social rot, as we continue to treat our precious future with utter social neglect and contempt. Our deserving rewards are just beginning to manifest themselves.

Tax reform in The Bahamas ...particularly the introduction of a brand new system of taxation ...cannot succeed without the advancement of a focused and widespread education campaign

DNA Press Release - VAT Education BEFORE Taxation!

Value Added Tax (VAT) experts hired to advise the Christie administration on the implementation of the proposed tax regime have, this week, confirmed the long standing position of many local business owners as well as the Democratic National Alliance (DNA). That position? That tax reforms in the Bahamas – particularly the introduction of a brand new system of taxation – cannot succeed without the advancement of a focused and widespread education campaign.

According to comments attributed to both John Shewan and Don Brash which ran in the local dailies this week, the government of New Zealand, which has arguably had the greatest success in VAT implementation, attributes the success of that initiative in part to their commitment to an 18 month educational program.

Unfortunately for Bahamians, we have received no such commitment from this administration. For months, the government, while on one hand promising to launch such an educational campaign, has on the other hand, allowed the uncertainty associated with VAT to negatively impact plans for expansion within the private sector. Even now, just 63 days from the originally proposed implementation date, this administration has yet to table the accompanying legislation. They have instead chosen to bully local business owners into compliance with a system that very few people currently understand.

The Democratic National Alliance finds it particularly interesting that some of the recommendations from the government’s highly paid consultants are in fact similar, if not identical to the suggestions offered by members of the local business community. Outside of the obvious recommendation for a properly planned and executed education campaign, the tax experts – according to media reports – also suggested that the government finalize its tax design before beginning its VAT campaign in earnest.  So far, unfinished versions of the government’s tax plan which includes a list of exemptions which may or may not be part of the final plan have been leaked through the media and allowed to further muddy the waters on this matter.

The DNA asserts that this administration could have easily saved itself thousands of dollars in consultancy fees by simply listening to the collective voice of the men and women responsible for driving the local economy.

Also of note was the position that a Freedom of Information Act is imperative to the successful implementation of a VAT system. The DNA has long called for the passage of this key piece of legislation as a means of facilitating the free flow of information to the public as well as keeping our elected officials accountable.

The DNA firmly believes that like in New Zealand, the passage of such legislation in the Bahamas will work to establish a renewed trust and faith in this government’s plans for fiscal reforms. While the Democratic National Alliance believes in, and is committed to tax reforms, we simply cannot endorse the government’s handling of this effort thus far.

We hope now, that after hearing the recommendations from an outside source, the Christie administration finally takes the necessary steps to ensuring that any fiscal reforms enacted are implemented with a view to stabilizing the economy and improving the government’s relationship with the private sector.


Branville McCartney
DNA Leader on Facebook

April 29, 2014