No mention of Education in the Throne Speech on Friday although I'm going to give Ms. Cox the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was because she wants to give the new Education Minister Jennifer Smith time to run her own department.
All the same though, someone from Government needs to lay out their plan soon. This recent talk about school closures and now redefining what a school is (Yeah I don't understand that one either) is causing a lot of uncertainty and also quite a bit of worry too. Closing schools is the last thing they should be doing right now, if the education system is failing even with the current class sizes how could anyone think it's not going to get a lot worse by increasing the class sizes?
If the options are increasing education funding or raising class sizes the government should fork out the extra money. Cuts need to be made, we all know that, but education is the complete wrong place to be looking for them. It is simply too important for that.
There may well be efficiency savings that can be made in the Ministry but, we must be very careful to make sure that they have no effect on the already below standard education that public school students are receiving and closing schools is a perfect example of a cut that will have an effect on that education.
Start teaching Bermuda's youth properly, then we can talk about saving money.
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