NEIL GOSINE

THE RESULTS of the Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) and the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams showed a decrease in performance in all areas between 2020 and 2021. Our children are faced with more stressors and the Ministry of Education has not done anything to provide them with the tools necessary to handle the many stresses in this covid19 life we now find ourselves.

The pandemic has shown that new pressures can develop and rapidly increase anxiety and stress levels in everyone, especially our students with what is going on in our schools. While we have no way to avoid unexpected events occurring, we can learn the skills necessary for coping with anxiety in these stressful times. These skills need to be taught to our children. The ministry under Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly has done little to ensure our children are better prepared for stressful events in this time of pandemic.

While our teenage sons or daughters are asked to navigate school with the increased pressures of physical distancing, sanitising and mask wearing, they need to be taught coping skills and ways to handle the increased stresses in this situation. The online programmes have not helped them learn new skills for coping with anxiety, depression and loneliness resulting from the covid19 pandemic.

Depression and mental issues are some of the main problems facing our children of all ages but especially those from ages 14 to 17 years old. They feel hopeless in this system being forced on them. Due to these stresses some have engaged in activities such as self-harm, with many having suicide tendencies. We have seen a greater risk of teenagers attempting suicide and self harming.

The pandemic has caused its own stresses in parents, far less for our young people trying to cope with existing problems such as self-esteem, social anxiety and interacting with their peers. These, on top of academic performance issues, have put so much pressures on our young adults that they are not coping very well during this time.

The ministry and the whole education system under this Government have not put the support in place required to help these teenagers. Where they don't seem to know if they are coming or going. The minister appears to be clueless and does not seem to have the proper mechanisms in place or the resources to oversee the secondary schools and see where our students are going off-track.

Putting mechanisms is place can assist our children and pull them back into line with help from their teachers. Why has the ministry not been able to realise that students did not have sufficient devices to keep up with their studies online? That is a major failure of the administration. The minister missed the boat on this one.

She also has not devised a proper training programme for teachers and principals to effectively bring the syllabus and curriculum to students and to identify those students that are struggling. This was handled very poorly in