And, those graduates may get the esteemed honor of marching up to collect their diplomas at a graduation ceremony after all. It all depends on whether or not their school's administrators are able to pull it off without breaking the State of Emergency Regulations, which will be relaxed to allow gatherings of up to 40 people.
Before today's announcement of the relaxation, the nation's graduates were staring at the prospect of getting their diplomas mailed to them while being stuck at home. That would have surely diminished the achievement after the many years of hard work and dedication to their studies. Well, the education minister told us that schools can hold their graduation ceremonies, but they have to respect the regs:
Hon. Patrick Faber - Minister of Education
"There was a request that came particularly from the Belize High School, I believe. That was sent to the Attorney General, and then, it was brought to Cabinet. And I believe it was also entertained at the National Oversight Committee. The response that this proposal received was that we really ought to consult with other principals and other schools to see what their thinking is. We didn't want it to come over as we're considering just a particular request from one school. Given that it is Belize High School, you know how that will go. They will say that it is a privileged school, and so on. The final result is actually that after discussing it with the Prime Minister, and the Attorney General, and evening discussing it in cabinet, we really believe that schools should be free to carry on whatever exercise, in terms of a graduation event, that they want to carry on, providing that it falls within the regulation of the State of Emergency. For simplification purposes, what the Belize High School wanted to do was to have people sit in their cars, and the graduates exits only at the time when he goes forward to receive the diploma from the schools authority person. If all of that can be done within the context of what the regulations say now in the state of emergency, then you need no approval from the Ministry of Education, or even from the National Oversight Committee or Cabinet. When it will be important for such a request is when what it is you're attempting to do clearly violates the regulation. And I just concluded a meeting with the managing authorities of secondary schools where I made that absolutely clear. Schools are free to conduct any kind of exercise having to do with graduation, closing of school - whatever it is they term it as - providing that those activities fall within the guidelines of the national State of Emergency. You won't have to come and ask for permission."
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