The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

SOME parents have reacted with fury at news that the national high school exams will take place next month after weeks of uncertainty, fearing the irregularity caused by the COVID-19 crisis will doom the performances of their children.

For some parents on Grand Cay, the impending exams are worrying because Hurricane Dorian left them without pivotal educational resources like access to the internet.

Hurricane Dorian damaged the island’s telecommunications infrastructure in 2019 and meaningful repairs did not take place until mid-April of this year. Although many students left the cay after the hurricane last year, some returned there when schools closed on March 14 because of COVID-19. For more than a month they lacked digital resources that may prove pivotal in helping students succeed in their national exams.

“Ain’ a lot been going on,” said Craig Cephas, a fisherman and father worried about how his son will perform in national exams next month. “They haven’t had no internet access for a long long time, there’s no school going on, the one teacher that teaches them, they started going by her home so she been giving them coursework at her house but I think it’s a bit late right now for them to be preparing for BGCSE because they didn’t have digital resources the whole time. It’s a disadvantage for the students on this island for sure. I don’t think they would be prepared and I think they should give them more time.”

July 13, he said, is a “couple days away.”

“I could see them adjusting or making an exception for Grand Cay or Abaco altogether because the main part of Abaco didn’t have full connections for awhile either.”

Even before Hurricane Dorian, Grand Cay students were at a disadvantage compared to their counterparts in more populated islands, Mr Cephas said, noting that very few numbers of teachers taught all classes. After the storm, he said one teacher taught all classes for students in grades eight through 12.

“I would think the government would put the necessary things in place to make their lives easier,” he said of the few teachers on the cay. “Something needs to be done.”

When students returned to Grand Cay in March, many congregated on Mr Cephas’ property to do their school work–– his was the only property on the cay with access to the internet.

“It used to be a lot of children too that would come,” he said. “Even before the pandemic took place, the whole grade, the one teacher that teaches the entire high school would bring them down here with their school tablets to do what they needed to do. They used to come down by me to access online features. There should have been a better way for them to do what they needed to do.”