KINGSTON, Jamaica—Prime Minister Andrew Holness is pushing back at criticisms surrounding his remarks that learning can extend beyond four walls, noting that his recent comments were not an argument put forward to replace classrooms.

Holness, who was speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Greater Bernard Lodge Housing Development in St Catherine on Friday, argued that there are hundreds of peer-reviewed studies which show the benefit of having students learn in conditions that are conducive, including being outdoors.

“There are literally hundreds of peer-reviewed studies which show the benefit of having students’ studies which show the benefit of having students being able to learn in conditions that are conducive; such conditions include being outdoors. Something, by the way, which many of our children don’t get as much as they should. They are locked in homes behind screens, playing with their telephones. Our children need to be in garden surroundings where they get to appreciate nature. This is not an argument to replace classrooms. Where did that come from? And people follow it as if it is the truth. They don’t even listen,” Holness said.

The prime minister said the state of classrooms in Jamaica has suffered from a lack of proper engineering, design and planning.

“The state of classrooms in Jamaica suffered from a lack of proper engineering design and planning many decades ago. In the same way that many of the houses that were constructed many decades ago suffered from the lack of engineering designs that accounted for weather and airflow and material use. In today’s construction, we cannot continue to build hot boxes. So my observations of the impact of the changing climate on our classrooms are not a matter to be treated as comic relief. It is a serious matter which has to be incorporated in the designs of the six new STEM schools which we intend to build,” Holness said.

He noted that the Ministry of Education will not be allowed to build schools in the traditional way.

“They will not be building the conventional four-wall classrooms for these schools. We must introduce new ergonomic designs of classrooms to ensure that our children can learn in comfort. We’re not planning on building the conventional bomb bunker schools that we have,” Holness said, adding “We have to build new schools that reflect modern design, use modern materials, are sustainable, and understand the changing weather creates a new Jamaican.”