Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis.
By RICARDO WELLS
Tribune Staff Reporter
rwells@tribunemedia.net
THE incoming Minnis administration is expected to implement several of its campaign proposals in education and national security once the new session of Parliament convenes later this month, with officials signalling an end to social promotion, enhanced work environments for teachers and wide-reaching social programmes aiming to help at-risk youth.
Shortly after Dr Hubert Minnis was sworn in as the country’s fourth prime minister, his administration’s presumptive education and national security ministers addressed concerns surrounding the respective portfolios, with both men touting sweeping changes and innovative policies on the horizon.
Marvin Dames, the member of Parliament-elect for the Mount Moriah constituency, on Thursday said plans to tackle crime from a societal viewpoint continues to be the mandate of the new administration.
Mr Dames, a retired senior police officer, said the community elements advanced by the party must be set in motion on day one.
“We know that we need to get Bahamians back to work if we want to reduce crime. That is the major concern for this administration. Poverty in our country has played a tremendous role in the advancement of criminality in our society,” Mr Dames said.
“In order for us to discuss crime, we must start with our people and the economy. It is the only way. More importantly we need to respect our young people and get our young people to work.
“Over the years we have lost so many of our young people to crime and those in the position that I now find myself in have been unable to fix that.
“That is a priority. The youth of this nation must be at the forefront in the resolution because they are primary in the issue. We need to aid our youth.”
The FNM, ahead of the general election, declared as one of its main principles that it believed it to be the right of every citizen to live and work in a safe and prosperous community.
The party further presented 20 ways it planned to decrease crime and improve the effectiveness of the police force.
The party said it planned to enforce a zero tolerance for crime; develop a modern, efficient crime fighting machine; establish, build and equip an independent forensic lab; work with community based partners; eliminate habitats where criminality flourishes; enact legislation to establish the National Intelligence Agency; enforce Marco’s Law and establish the sexual offences register; use state of the art technology; establish a national neighbourhood watch consultative council; establish a public sector anti-corruption agency; conduct a comprehensive review of police officers compensation and re-institute term limits for the commissioner of police, commodore of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force and the commissioner of corrections.
Additionally, the party pledged to reorganise the police reserves; strengthen the RBDF satellite bases; implement aggressive measures to arrest the trafficking of narcotics and firearms; arrest gang violence through educational programmes; establish a Guns and Gangs Unit; undertake a comprehensive manpower audit of the police force and identify an external inspector for our law enforcement agencies whose responsibility will be to review the efficiency and effectiveness of our enforcement agencies.
Education
For his part, South Beach MP-elect Jeffery Lloyd said the new Minnis administration intends to end social promotion - a programme he labelled “a blight” on education.
Mr Lloyd said the party would look to make public several of its “brisk and aggressive” plans in the coming weeks.
“We are a party of reformation and transformation and those will be the two pillars on which we will build our new education model,” he said.
“We will redeem education and give it its full due. We have to bring accountability back to the process if we want to improve education. This is about ending social promotion which has been a blight on our system.
“This is about expanding educational reach down to the earliest possible ages. This also is about making education recognised for the value that it is to our society.
“We also understand and appreciate that technical education is one that has been assaulted in its recognition and importance to our country. We will address that.”
In its manifesto the FNM said it would look to implement comprehensive changes, all of which would be hinged on four fundamental principles.
The manifesto noted: “The Free National Movement proposes to comprehensively address the identified challenges in the following manner: end social promotion in the school system; increase investments in education – human resources and training, private sector involvement and technical vocational training; by greater investment in the continuous training, retraining and professional development of teachers and educational professionals; increase expenditure on educational infrastructure to reduce class sizes and provide greater resources for the educational establishment; recruit interested Bahamian candidates for teaching careers through attractive incentives; increase investment in technical and vocational education in high schools; encourage and financially support through tax breaks and subventions, private sector involvement in education subject to rigorous regulatory standards.”
The party is also expected to amend the Education Act to mandate pre-school learning.
The party has yet to name any members of its new Cabinet.
However, sources in the party have tapped Mr Lloyd as the next minister of education and Mr Dames and the next minister of national security. The country’s new minister of finance and attorney general are expected to be sworn in at Government House today.
Comments
MassExodus 6 years, 11 months ago
We are watching!...
Reality_Check 6 years, 11 months ago
Re-post: We can only hope and pray Minnis is smart enough to keep the newspaper columnists and radio and TV talk show hosts out of his cabinet. Sadly, both Symonette and D'Aguilar have no doubt already bought and paid for what they think will be the key cabinet posts they want to come their way. If D'Aguilar gets the cabinet post I think he has lobbied for, we (the people) will never get the fully story on all of the corruption behind the Baha Mar development because D'Aguilar himself as a former director of Baha Mar would have considerable exposure to various illegal activities involving of the original developer and high ranking corrupt politicians and officials in the last government. Lest we forget, D'Aguilar was sitting on the Board of Baha Mar at the time the anticipated very lucrative leases of many thousands of square feet of prime retail space were approved for the Hazelwood family who are fronting for immediate family members of Allyson Maynard-Gibson who have a very significant interest in those same leases. Hopefully Minnis appreciates that D'Aguilar must be kept as far away as possible from any matters involving the Baha Mar development. For similar reasons, Minnis must keep Brent Symonette as far away as possible from any cabinet post that would involve ministerial responsibility for the ports, shipping, banking or infrastructural developments. Its high time Brent Symonette be made to give back to the Bahamian people. If I were Minnis I would make appoint Symonette Minister of Education and if he shows no initiative in that role I would take him out of the cabinet altogether!
banker 6 years, 11 months ago
Oh come on Mudda, you is making shiite up again and casting untrue aspersions. You are as bad as birdie.
birdiestrachan 6 years, 11 months ago
They Mr:Dames nor Mr: Jeff Lloyd have said anything new, about fighting crime , We have heard it all before They were always after Mr: Greenslade. Dames always wanted to be chief and they talk about victimization These people have no vision.
Notice they neglected to mention what roc with doc said about free education at the University of the Bahamas. Is that off the table already>??
banker 6 years, 11 months ago
Birdie, if you and mudda had kids, they would look like this:
by banker
Well_mudda_take_sic 6 years, 11 months ago
And you're probably too dense @banker to appreciate that you're giving away your ip address every time you download a pic or graphic and attach it to The Tribune web site. LOL!
banker 6 years, 11 months ago
Sigh .. already explained that I use a foreign proxy.
sheeprunner12 6 years, 11 months ago
What will Jeff Lloyd do with the old dinosaur Lionel Sands as Director of Education?????
What will Jeff Lloyd do with the new High School Diploma??????
What will Jeff Lloyd do with the one-size-fits-all public high schools in Nassau????
What will Jeff Lloyd do with all of these small ineffective high schools all over the Family Islands???????
What will Jeff Lloyd do with the lack of a Teachers' Service Commission to professionalize the Bahamian educators????????
What will Jeff Lloyd do with the BUT millstone created around the government's neck????
SP 6 years, 11 months ago
Education has one of the biggest budgets crippled with mind-blowing graft in the country!
Getting control of graft in education must be the very first step in turning arouund the ministry of education as the country is not getting value for dollar due to the disappearance of funds to ingrained historic, endemic, corruption allowed to fester over many decades.
Secondly, the educational environment has to be seriously addressed to remove disruptive students out of the school system by simply creating one campus for delinquent and problematic students focused on technical vocational training for students falling in this category. This would immediately improve opportunities for teachers to teach and students to learn.
This new government must focus on reeling in graft in every ministry to make every dollar invested accountable. We don't need "more money", we need proper management of money!!
Finally, Perminate Secretaries are ALL guilty of facilitating corruption and graft through successive administrations. These people should be looked at forensically to determine where and how decades of corruption and graft has been allowed to flourish.
The Bahamas finally now has an opportunity to do an immediate 180 turn and head in the right direction. Corruption and graft is THE single biggest hurdle which must be brought under control and offers the opportunity of "self funding" the many programs needed to right decades of nepotism, paralyzing cronyism, and gross political stupidity that has plagued our country for 4 decades.
CONGRATULATIONS Dr. Minnis and team. We, the Bahamian people are willing and able to work with you to save our country!
banker 6 years, 11 months ago
Need some talking points on transitioning to STEM education.
cmiller 6 years, 11 months ago
And we won't need foreign consultants to do it. Bahamian teachers from the IB schools right here can help make the transition. And from a content based, to a skills based curriculum.
tell_it_like_it_is 6 years, 11 months ago
A very many of those sitting up in the Department of Education (DOE) Mr. Lloyd are just there to collect their paycheck and increase their pension.
It's time to do some WEEDING OUT. Those who need to retire (force them) and make everyone at DOE accountable because you will find that they don't care much about what's actually happening in the schools (much less the classrooms).
It's time to bring better educated modern thinkers to bring new ideas and a commitment to improving education that has been lacking for decades.
Some sitting there don't even have a degree in education (or just a very basic one) and because they have been there FOREVER they believe this entitles them to positions of seniority.We need to stop that foolishness and let QUALIFIED people serve in those positions.
ohdrap4 6 years, 11 months ago
sorry to say this, but degrees in education will not make education better.
education students have the lowest gpa in every university in the world.
plus, the content of education classes is just crap anyway compared to other subjects.
tell_it_like_it_is 6 years, 11 months ago
Unless you have the highest degree in Education your comment would be considered somewhat baseless. While having a graduate degree (in any field really) is not the panacea for ALL ills, it exposes education practitioners to RESEARCHED methods that have been successful on a global scale.
Undergraduate degrees really do not provide this type of scholarly research and empirical evidence which somewhat leaves practitioners hypothesizing on appropriate pedagogy apposite to learner's needs, especially in developing nations.
OMG 6 years, 11 months ago
So much nonsense. 1. Get rid of Sands the director. He is a liar, I know from first hand experience. 2.Get rid of the deputy director who goes and recruits Cuban teachers often with no expertise in that subject area and little interest in the system other than getting all they can from Amazon to take back. I know this for a fact. 3. Separate academic from practical students. 4. Simplify the subjects offered at Primary level. Why the hell teach Spanish when they can't even write or read properly when they reach high school. 5. Stop this nonsense of making Heads of department to give "them the experience" when often they are junior to experienced members of staff in that department. 6. Stop all the nonsense 1/2 days, teacher appreciation days, visiting gospel groups and all the other time wasting events. In effect the system is broken, often with poor vindictive and insecure Principals.
sheeprunner12 6 years, 11 months ago
Agreed .......... Education would be better served if we first had a Teachers' Service Commission to hire, promote and fire teachers .......... If there were not so many levels of senior management that trivializes the work of Principals ........ If each school had a Board that was responsible for recruiting their own teachers ........ If teachers were given 5-year renewable contracts instead of 30-40 year careers
sheeprunner12 6 years, 11 months ago
The problem is not teacher qualifications ...... most teachers have a first degree and certification ...... the main problems are retraining, evaluation, redundant curricula, no career path and time-on-task monitoring in schools
cmiller 6 years, 11 months ago
And replacing old people that are clinging to high level posts, but really have no more to offer. Let the younger generation with dreams and visions take over now.
ThisIsOurs 6 years, 11 months ago
It's not that simple, there are some 60 year olds who could run circles around a 25 year old. Determining who should stay and who should go should be performance based. The one constant I've found with "young" people is they haven't been around long enough to figure out that they don't know everything.
OMG 6 years, 11 months ago
You need to retain some of the more senior teachers to use their wealth of expertise. For example older teachers are better (male and female) of breaking up or stopping fights as opposed to younger teachers who are seen as a threat to the macho male student. But if your talking about clinging on to posts lets start with the Director and Deputy director then all the consultants.
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