KINGSTON, JAMAICA, August 27, 2021 -- In its latest publication, “Time Out: The Impact of COVID on Education,” the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CAPRI) release its findings and provide evidence-informed policy solutions to the complex and critical problems that Jamaica's education sector will undoubtedly face as a result of the pandemic on Thursday, September 2, 2021.
Ms. Stephanie Sewell and Mrs. Maxine Henry-Wilson conducted the study, which was co-funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office. Sewell and Henry-Wilson reviewed and analysed the pandemic's disruption and its impact on education, which plays a critical role in national development at both the individual and societal levels.
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in widespread school closures in more than 160 countries. Over 1.2 billion students at all levels of education around the world have stopped having face-to-face classes. More than 160 million of these were students in Latin America and the Caribbean. Given the confirmation of the first case of COVID-19 in Jamaica, the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Information (MOEYI) ordered the closure of all public and private schools on March 13, 2020. This was consistent with the response taken in other countries where the virus was discovered.
The closure would affect 600,000 students in the educational system. All of the factors that influence learning—school attendance, classroom engagement, and assessments—were impacted, implying that children would fail to meet grade-appropriate learning targets. Concerns were raised, in particular, about learning losses and the exacerbation of previously existing
inequities in the system.
CAPRI's research places the COVID-19 school closures in the context of the Jamaican education system; provides a chronology of events related to COVID-19 school closures in Jamaica; and determines whether and how students were disadvantaged by school closures, taking into account the extent to which their pre-existing socioeconomic conditions exacerbated or alleviated that disadvantage, as well as what the effects of school closures have been on students’ social and emotional development, and the fulfilment of their potential to self-actualize, and makes recommendations regarding the resumption of face-to-face/in person school for the new academic year, 2021-2022.
The study’s findings and recommendations will be presented by CAPRI’s Director of Research, Dr Diana Thorburn, and moderated by CAPRI’s Director of Advocacy, Dr Leanne Levers. The event will stream live on the thinktank’s YouTube channel, Twitter account (@CAPRICaribbean), Facebook page (@CAPRICaribbean), and capricaribbean.org at 8:00 PM sharp.
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