The Tribune

IN ALL of the talk about COVID-19 and its effects, it is easy to be swamped by the numbers.

That has been even more so than ever lately – with days of hundreds of new cases, including as many as 818 in a single day.

What can be lost in it all is the human dimension. One of those aspects is how nursing staff and doctors are swamped, with colleagues coming down with the virus and still having to struggle on serving people in need.

Another of the aspects is the education of our young people – and the number being left behind amid distance learning.

In this column in the past, we have questioned how families who may be in homes without internet, without electronic devices – even sometimes without power are supposed to keep up with the day-to-day education of children stuck at home.

Some of those children may have only limited access to online capability, if any at all, and when they do they may have to share that access with other family members.

Education Minister Glenys Hanna Martin put it in stark terms yesterday, that some students have not used the ministry’s learning management system for about two years.

She said: “Children are not logging on for varying reasons and we’re doing a study now to find out to get an understanding (of) what all of these reasons are so that we can meet those reasons, but in the meantime we anticipate that there are children who have not been online for two years.”

It’s not just children being left behind though – it is a question of what is filling that void for them as well.

As Minister of National Security Wayne Munroe says, it is an issue of national security.

He said: “If we think we’re having problems now, all you need to do is not get a grip of this and look in the next ten, 15, 20 years.”

It is reassuring to see the problem being treated seriously – and with a proper understanding of the consequences if we don’t deal with it.

This far into a pandemic, of course we should have a better idea of the problems facing our students – we should know beyond a doubt rather than be needing to do a study now, but there seems to be a definite concern to tackle the matter.

The pandemic has seen enough tragedy with the lives lost and families shattered – we cannot let there be another tragedy of a missing generation of students.

We need to pull those students back into the education system – and give them the future they deserve.

Overspending

After all the noise from the current administration about the overspend at the Public Parks and Beaches Authority by the Minnis government – lo and behold it turns out there was an overspend at the authority under the Christie administration too.

Will we hear as much talk of scandal about that from the current office holders? Or will that one get conveniently forgotten?

More to the point, does that mean that there’s actually a structural problem and the department is being asked to handle more than its budget will allow?

Budgets should never be regularly ignored or exceeded – but perhaps that means the initial budget was inadequate, or that the department needs restructuring to actually fit the budget it has.

Either way, if you’re unhappy with overspend under Minnis, you should be equally unhappy with overspend under the previous government – and get to the bottom of why one authority regularly overshoots.

That is, of course, as long as it’s not just partisan talking points without any real aim to fix the matter.