An Independent Senator has appealed to Government to allow a longer period in school for children who do not progress at the pace of the majority.
Senator Reverend Canon Dr John Rogers made the case for those children liable to fall through the cracks, urging that they be considered in the plan for educational transformation.
Speaking in the Senate yesterday during debate on the Appropriation Bill, 2025 Rogers noted the Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training was allocated the largest part of the national budget.
Reiterating views on the Common Entrance Examination which he had previously expressed, Rogers suggested to education authorities while they were trying “to level the playing field”, they “do not hold back the geniuses among us”.
“I don’t want us to suppress that while we try to fix the other side,” he said.
However, he urged that the slow learners’ difficulties be considered.
“One of the things I think we will need to do in the interim while we get educational reform together, don’t force our children out of school. A child with ten per cent cannot do the first form curriculum as the child with 100 per cent.”
He asked that children in the former category be given more time to realise their true potential, by being allowed an extra year at school.
He also called for the hiring of more remedial teachers.
Rogers warned of the danger of low-achievers being lured into the drug business, with “a lot of our young children getting hooked on lifestyles that are detrimental to their development; on substances that are detrimental to their lives.”
This point he said, brought him to one of his “pet peeves – the Ministry of Agriculture and the Barbados Cannabis Licensing Authority, and the failure to clarify the nature of medicinal cannabis.
He called on government to stop dragging its feet on the matter of the production of medicinal cannabis and any wait for the United States authorities to determine the acceptable strain of cannabis for cultivation for medicinal purposes.
“If you are waiting for the Americans to sign a farm Bill to get your medicinal Cannabis Licensing Authority on the way, don’t wait in vain,” Rogers cautioned.
He suggested there were ways to get around the cannabis issue by finding an alternative in the strains of the plant.
