Dear Editor,

Since Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica in October 2025, the country has spoken repeatedly about recovery, rebuilding, and resilience. Yet, as a new academic year begins, one has to ask: How much of that recovery has reached our schools and our children?

For many Jamaican families, the months since the hurricane have been anything but easy. Homes were destroyed, livelihoods disrupted, and lives thrown into uncertainty. Yet parents and caregivers have continued to do what Jamaican families have always done in difficult times — adapt, sacrifice, and push forward.

Despite their own hardships, parents have worked to prepare their children for the new school term. They have found money for uniforms, books, shoes, and school supplies, often while still trying to rebuild what was lost.

But who is preparing the schools?

In Westmoreland and other affected parishes across Jamaica, reports of schools operating in severely compromised conditions should concern every Jamaican. Students are reportedly being forced to sit outside under trees, while some are using tree stumps as makeshift desks and chairs. These are not simply signs of inconvenience, they are signs that something is fundamentally wrong with the way we are approaching the recovery of our education system.

We cannot tell our children that education is the key to their future while asking them to learn in environments that do not provide the basic conditions necessary for learning. A school is more than a building, it is a place where children should feel safe, secure, and valued. It should provide an environment that supports concentration, development, and achievement. At a minimum, that means functional classrooms, adequate desks and chairs, proper sanitation, water, electricity, learning materials, and facilities that are safe and fit for purpose. Simply reopening the school gates is not the same as restoring education.

The impact of Hurricane Melissa has also been more than physical. Children have experienced disruption, uncertainty, displacement, and loss. For them, returning to school should represent a return to stability and normality; instead, some are returning to environments that reflect how much remains unfinished. And this raises an uncomfortable question: Have we allowed the resilience of Jamaican people to become an excuse for institutional inaction?

“Jamaicans are resilient.” We have heard it repeatedly, and rightly so. But resilience should not mean that citizens are expected to continuously endure conditions that should have been addressed through proper planning, investment, and decisive action.

Parents should not have to rebuild their homes, replace their belongings, restore their livelihoods, and then compensate for inadequate school facilities simply to ensure their children receive an education.

Parents are doing their part; our institutions must do theirs. The condition of our schools should be treated as a national priority — not merely as a post-hurricane repair issue.

If Jamaica is serious about its children being the future of this country, then our investment in them must be visible. It must be reflected in the classrooms they enter, the facilities available to them, and the resources provided to the teachers responsible for educating them.

We should be asking difficult questions, such as:

• How many schools remain without the facilities they need?

• How many students are learning in unsuitable environments?

• What resources have been allocated to complete the recovery of affected schools?

• What is the timeline for restoring those schools to an acceptable standard?

• Who is being held accountable?

Our children should not have to wait indefinitely for the basic conditions necessary to learn. This is not about expecting perfection in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane; it is about expecting urgency and recognising that education cannot be placed on hold while recovery continues.

Recovery must include our schools. Recovery must include our children.

The families affected by Hurricane Melissa have demonstrated extraordinary courage. They have continued to move forward despite tremendous loss. Now, that resilience must be met with meaningful action from those entrusted with the responsibility of rebuilding our country. We cannot build Jamaica’s future while neglecting the classrooms in which that future is being shaped.

As a new academic year begins, perhaps the question is no longer simply whether Jamaica is recovering. Perhaps we need to ask: What are Jamaica’s priorities — and do our children truly rank among them?

Melesa Bacchas

Concerned citizen

melesabacchas@yahoo.com