Hurricane Melissa tore through communities, damaged infrastructure, and upended daily life. The trauma is real and the road to recovery will be long. But amid the wreckage, one truth must remain non-negotiable: Our children’s education cannot be placed on indefinite pause.

On this, National Parent-Teacher Association of Jamaica President Stewart Jacobs is commendably adamant.

Mr Jacobs was at pains yesterday to insist that, despite opposition from some quarters, learning must resume for all next week, including students in the most affected areas. The Government must not relent in its push for this.

Of course, the concerns being raised by both principals in affected areas and the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) are not trivial. Hundreds of educational institutions sustained damage during Melissa, ranging from leaks to destruction. Several schools remain structurally compromised. Others are still serving as emergency shelters, and some principals have admitted they are just not ready. The JTA has also denounced the Ministry of Education’s edict for resumption as lacking stakeholder consultation.

Full return to normalcy will take time. But while the stakeholders’ anxieties deserve respect, they cannot become excuses for inertia.

History has already taught us the cost of prolonged school disruption. From the COVID-19 pandemic to repeated weather-related emergencies, Jamaican students, in particular those from vulnerable communities, have lost precious instructional time. The learning gaps are widening, and every additional delay compounds inequality, leaving the most at-risk children even further behind. To pause again without a clear, aggressive alternative plan would be to mortgage the future of an entire cohort of students.

This is why Mr Jacobs’s call for innovation, and his solutions to boot, are welcome in a climate of screaming opposition.

“What needs to be done is to look at [schools] on a case-by-case basis… [and] to have field classrooms similar to how we have field hospitals, because it would ease the pressure and allow the teaching process to continue,” Mr Jacobs told
Nationwide News
on Monday. He also tasked Government to fast-track Internet connectivity to affected areas so remote learning can continue for others.

His proposal for field schools — modelled after field hospitals — deserves serious consideration. Temporary learning facilities can ensure continuity while permanent repairs are underway. If the nation can mobilise resources quickly in the aftermath of a disaster to save lives, surely it can do the same to safeguard minds.

Where appropriate, connectivity can be guaranteed through Government-supported data plans, community Wi-Fi hubs, or partnerships with telecoms providers. While online education cannot be a lazy fallback that assumes all households have devices, stable Internet, and electricity, remote learning must form part of a flexible, blended response.

The Ministry of Education must, of course, engage school administrators and the JTA honestly and transparently. Schools that are genuinely unsafe should not reopen prematurely. However, a blanket resistance to reopening sends the message that education is a convenience to be resumed only when conditions are ideal.

The Easter term cannot begin with uncertainty still hanging over the nation’s classrooms. The stakeholders must move beyond opposition and engage constructively in shaping workable solutions. Hurricane Melissa damaged buildings, but it must not derail ambition. Learning must resume for every child, by every means necessary.