Bahamas seeking to reform education system

THE Bahamas is currently looking to reform their education system and they are hoping to use Barbados’ education system as a model upon which to do so.

This is according to Minister of Education in The Bahamas, Jeffrey Lloyd, who at the time was speaking to the media at a press conference following a meeting between him, Minister of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, Ronald Jones, and other officials at the Ministry, and prior to a tour of some of the nursery schools in Barbados.

Currently on the island to attend an inter-sectoral meeting of the Organisation of American States (OAS) for the Ministers of Education, he said that he met Jones in Washington, DC earlier this summer where the Barbados Minister extended an invitation to the members of the Inter-American Education Committee to come to Barbados to see the high level of pre-school education on the island. An offer which Lloyd gladly took him up on, because one of the new goals of the recently elected administration in The Bahamas is to reform the education system with a particular focus on three-year-olds.

“One of the main emphases of the government – this new government – is to reform education by way of introducing and emphasising the delivery of education for three-year-olds – we call it pre-school education in The Bahamas. And so having this opportunity to come to Barbados, and I was grateful that he acceded our request to have time with his team to sit and to learn more about (how) Barbados over the decades has been able to make this a possibility.”

He was therefore looking forward to the tours of the nursery school facilities here in Barbados as he is hoping that lessons learnt could be applied back in his native country.

“And the presentation this morning was impressive and very enlightening and very encouraging to us in The Bahamas. To encourage us to now be able to meet that pretty tall order which we have set for ourselves and which we know that is a necessity in terms of making available to our young people in The Bahamian society the opportunities for a solid foundation in education, beginning at the earliest stages of human life – in our instance it would be the three-year-olds. So I am looking forward to the visits ... and seeing how it is done and looking at some of the state-of-the-art facilities that have been constructed here in Barbados for the nursery students.”

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