Ministry takes education bill on the road
Tara Rivers, Minister of Education, Employment and Gender Affairs
(CNS): Education Minister Tara Rivers and government officials began a series of public meetings at the weekend, which continue tonight in George Town. The open house sessions will enable the broader public, not just parents with school age kids, to ask questions and offer input on the proposed law. The public consultation began earlier this month and will continue until the beginning of July, before the law is expected to be brought to the parliament in September.
The bill is an updated version of the legislation brought by the now premier and passed in 2009 at the end of the PPM’s last time in office. However, the law was never enacted during the UDP administration, though the policies supporting the bill have been adopted in the most part by the education department.
Rivers said at a recent press briefing that some changes to update the legislation have been made but in large part she was confident that her fellow legislators will all get behind the revamped law and ensure its passage and subsequent implementation before the year end.
Education officials will be in George Town at the Mary Miller Hall tonight (22 June) from 7:00 to 8:30pm.
Category: Education, Local News
Will the bill stop you from spending $250,000 on base line reports from those who know nothing about state education? If so, great!
I have just read the Bill.Are they seriously going to close all failing schools? Dear Lord do you know what that means?
The reason is obvious; she has set out to discredit all the good work that is going on and the huge strides we have made over recent years so that her own political ideology wins out. I say political ideology because it cannot be an educational ideology since she knows absolutely nothing about education.
From what I read in today’s paper, I can’t beleive she wants to pass a bill to close schools that arebelow normal, and government is going to manage these schools, sh….. They can’t even run the Government schools properly. I am still shocked that it costs approximately $25K pa per child in a public school.
What we also need to do is address why expats can’t go into public schools of course at a cost but lower than the current private schools, this would help generate revenue, it would also I beleive help our younger caymanains to understand other nationalities and their cultures. We use to do this inbthe past and from my recollection in high school I made some very good friends whom now live elsewhere around the world and we still chat online and on occasion my family go visit a few of them.
Lastly this woman XXXXXX will not get back into government next time round, however she will receive a large pension and free health care for the rest of her life out of our money we pay to government…
How can a Minister of Education not want to listen to her own experts but want to listen to those who in the past were discredited and retired off? Ask anyone at the Ministry or Department how much advice she has south fro them and the answer will be zero. Instead she prefers to bring in outsiders who know nothing about our system or indeed any state school system, does not allow them to talk to people on island, and you might ask why. Because Rivers is intent, by hook or by crook of not sticking with what we have and working on improvement. Yes it can be slow but I seriously see nothing from the UK that I would want to transfer to Cayman. All the inspections in the word and assessment and testing is not making UK any better.
Never a truer word!
Every report on John Grey has shown it to be a failing school over years and years. Under this Bill does it mean that John Grey will now be closed down?
It certainly will not so its another piece of legislation without any teeth or will to enforce just like the rest.Besides the ex head of JGHS is now the Acting Chief Education Officer!
Her performance at the ML A showed how little she knows about education. Ignorance is bliss except its our chikdren’s education we are talking about and this woman is out to destroy it.
“Ministry Takes Education Bill on the Road”………..why? I presume from past experience no meaningful discussion will take place.
More to the point why are we being compared to the UK? Also in excess of 30% of the brightest Caymanians go to private schools so where is the level playing field?
Perhaps because our “National Curriculum” was copied ad nauseam from theirs?
what are we going to do about CUC? and there enormous bills that seem to have no end to the continued rise in cost to RESIDENTIAL.
You can see why the woman reached the glass ceiling in law.
Was she standing on a ladder at the time?
I heard they were not even allowed to talk to anyone in either the Ministry of Education or the Department of Education. This in my eyes is a vote of no confidence in her own staff. I trust they will now all be fired and you can hire from the people on the ready to work list of NWDA.
Missing the lol button!
Has the Minister given an explanation of why she hired English private school inspectors to come and do a base line study of our state schools? Has she also addressed the issue as to why during the inspection of the first few schools, the inspectors were told NOT to talk to any teachers or heads in the schools they were inspecting.? Finally will this bill stop her and her C4C friends from trying to discredit our schools purely so that they can implement the change THeY want? This base line was totally discredited by the fact they hired people who know nothing about Cayman or the educational journey we have been on. Slow handclap Minister for your own goal on this one.
Oh there have been many own goals over decades and spectacular ones on the way.
Now lets see how they manage the fallout.