Yesterday, former PUP education minister Francis Fonseca, said, quote,
"The Government has presided over a striking deterioration in
access to and quality of education provided at all levels in
Belize, over the past decade."
That's under Faber's watch as the minister of education with the
longest uninterrupted tenure in Belize's post independent history.
Not, surprisingly, he bristled at the suggestion:
Daniel Ortiz
"Are you satisfied with the delivery of service for all of Belize's
children as education currently stands?"
Hon. Patrick Faber- Minister of Education
"That is never a question that I can be satisfied with an answer. I can
never say to you, in other words, that I am satisfied. It is a quest
that is ever ongoing for us to try to constantly improve the quality of
the education. That is a never ending task. But I am satisfied over the
many years that I have led this ship, that despite the many struggles,
we have had great successes. You think back about the Teaching Services
Commission and the fact now that we are able to serve teachers in the
manner in which we are doing now where we have removed the politics out
of things. When I say that, I don't mean only PUP/UDP politics. Even
the church politics, where they used to be able to fire teachers
because they didn't practice the right religion or they didn't follow
the right political party. Those things are gone. When we think about
the removal of corporal punishment, when we think about greater access
to preschool education. when we think about our fight for literacy in
this country. I notice that they made a point about that as well. Are
they not realizing? And again the media can fact check them. you have
been involved in the many initiatives of this Ministry. In the
financial literacy and for regular literacy, you know that Carol Babb,
our Chief Education Officer is a champion for literacy. You have seen
the establishment of the literacy unit, that is, much to my dismay
called the Belize Literacy Unit, the BLU. I tell them, they should have
named it RED, Read Every Day. But these things are alive. You know
about the diagnostic testing that we are doing at the early levels to
capture when children are not mastering the basic literacy skills.
These things are there. And you know that we have worked so hard
dedicating ourselves to these things. I am, one way or the other, and
I've gone on the record to say this, departing from the Ministry of
Education in a few months time, I think we are now down to weeks-time.
I am confident that I will be able to look back, in fact I am already
at that stage, to look back and say I have made a significant
contribution. Certainly, I have been the longest serving Minister of
Education. I have made some serious indentations into the system as we
know it. There is always room for improvement but I would be satisfied
when my tenure comes to an end that I have made significant
contributions to Belize's educational development."
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