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The Deputy Prime Minister also took the opportunity to announce major changes coming to Belize’s education system. Some of those changes include reforms to the way teachers impart knowledge to their students, which we will get to shortly. 

But, first, Faber spoke about the additional schools they are building, with a focus on early childhood education:

Hon. Patrick Faber - Minister of Education
"You’ll remember that there’s a CDB loan, where we’re building quite a number of schools at the secondary, primary, but the majority of those schools are at the pre-school level. We believe in our children getting a very strong start, a strong solid foundation, and we continue to see success in that area. We now see tremendous success in the number of trained teachers at the pre-school and early childhood level for infants, and for us that is going to spell major success down the road, and we’re absolutely looking forward for that."

And in only a few months, 1st and 2nd form students attending classes at 0 9 select high school, will be utilizing technology to carry on their education. It’s being made possible through a partnership between the Government and the state owned telecom company, Digi.  The Deputy PM shared a few details about how it will work:

Hon. Patrick Faber
"We just signed a letter of intent with Digi, BTL, and in fact, you may know that we’ve been piloting a digital platform initiative in 9 of our secondary schools. In 1 first form class, that pilot is now concluded, and in fact, our intent with BTL, Digi, is to ensure that that start of the new school year, in those 9 schools, all the 1st formers, and all the 2nd formers will receive their device, and they will operate on a digital platform for all of their classes. That is big, and next school year, we hope to roll out to beyond those 9 schools. We hope then to advance it to something like 20+ schools, and in the next year after that, by 2021-22 - I believe it is - we are going to have 43 of our high schools - and there are only about 50+ schools - 43 of them, and the only limitation is bandwidth that allows us to only go to those 43. Maybe by that time, we would have been able to expand the bandwidth to all areas. But, all of these schools will be operating on a digital platform. Instruction, test taking, quizzes, everything will be done on the individual student’s devices. And you’ll remember that we’ve been working on digitizing the textbooks as well. We’ll continue with that. We have not been able to find a provider that is affordable to meet our needs. But, we continue to work, and when we find that, we’ll load that unto that very same digital platform that Digi is helping us with. And it’s going to be a new revolution in this country. And this is happening now. It’s not promised for the future. It’s happening now; it will gradually be rolled out."

Also another education reform initiative that’s on the way is that the Government is in the process of amending laws to increase the mandatory age that children must be in school from 14 to 16. The Deputy PM told us that one of the considerations for this change is to continue discouraging child labour. Here’s how he explained the change:

Hon. Patrick Faber
"The mandatory school age, as you know is 14 - up to 14. And if you listened to my remarks this morning, you will hear that in fact, we’re looking to raise the mandatory age to 16. We believe that our young people need a longer time in school. Once that is done, it will be illegal for children under that age of 16 to be working. And so, there is something that the government intends to do about that. Child labour is not something that our administration supports whatsoever, but some very difficult circumstances, we see where that is happening now. But if they’re 14 or over, the law allows for that currently, and we also see where in some communities - one that comes immediately to mind is the surrounding area of Spanish Lookout, where a lot of children who finish primary school, don’t go on to high school because they are expected to help out on the farm. But, we see that trend diminishing. You remember that was a practice as well in Toledo. Now, we’re seeing the numbers going to high school, including our girls, boost up, and this is because of our initiatives, and our education campaign by the government, particularly the Ministry of Education. So, we expect to see turning around, and of course, the government will do what it needs to do to add teeth to the whole thing to ensure that our children are not exploited in that manner."