THE National Council on Education (NCE) says it welcomes the announcement made by Prime Minister Andrew Holness that schools should reopen for face-to-face learning in September of this year.

The need for face-to-face learning supports the findings of the NCE studies, which identified major learning loss among students as a result of the challenges that they experienced with online learning, among other things. With many students losing more than a year of schooling due to the pandemic, this decision is indeed critical, as there are many obstacles to overcome, said the commission.

“The return to face-to-face teaching and learning is also especially important, for students at the early childhood and the primary levels of the system, as based on the results of the study, only between 20 per cent and 50 per cent of the students participated in any form of remote learning. Further, a major effect of the pandemic on the education sector is learning loss. Every effort must therefore be made to stem the loss and to get our children and students back on a path to pursue their formal education,” said the commission in a weekend release.

It added that creating a safe learning environment in schools for students and children is critical for closing the learning gap, and commended the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information for promoting and encouraging teachers in particular to be vaccinated. “It is also important that all employees in the school system be vaccinated and every effort should be made to ensure that the children themselves are vaccinated as soon as the appropriate vaccines are made available,” said the commission.

At the same time, it cautioned that a significant threat remains as there could be super spreader in the school systems any of the new variants could surface at any time, in particular the Delta plus strain, which is rapidly circulating across the world. “Moreover, with the present relaxing of restrictions in the entertainment sector and other enterprises where mass gatherings are a likely feature of their modus operandi, all efforts have to be made to enforce the COVID-19 protocols until the country reaches herd or population immunity,” said the NCE.

The council recommended that the Ministry of Education, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Wellness, host a vaccination blitz islandwide targeting the education sector. This effort, it said, should be fully integrated with the school leaders along with the support of the boards of management.

At the same time, the NCE said while it is pushing for the return to face-to-face teaching and learning, the continuation of online learning must be facilitated “in order to build this alternate teaching/learning capacity. In respect of teachers, this will allow them to take full advantage of the available technology for offering synchronous and asynchronous teaching and learning, while independent or self-directed learning among students would be supported and encouraged.