MEDIA MAGNIFIED : VOICES OF TOMORROW’S MEDIA 2024
41% of population not attending online classes
Nickela Taylor
October 19, 2021
Nickela Taylor
Mr. Lynton Weir, principal of the Old Harbour High School, St. Catherine,
explains the factors that push his colleagues and himself into communities
to search for his students who are not active in online classes in his office on October 19, 2021
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 120,000 students in Jamaica have missed lessons in
the last year because teaching has become predominantly available online.
Lynton Weir, principal of the Old Harbour High School in St Catherine and LASCO principal of
the year 2019-2020, along the schools guidance counsellors, dean of discipline and the Health
and Family Life Education (HFLE) coordinator, went into nearby communities on October 7.
They were seeking their students who are not active in online classes. Mr. Weir said, the
objective is to find out what’s keeping students out of school.
Mr. Weir Said, “We recognized at that only 59% of our students are online, so we are very
concerned. We have a student population of 2,442 students and having only 59% online, that by
itself is extremely alarming. My colleague and I went to Old Harbour Bay and other neighboring
communities to find out from parents what reasons account for their children not attending
classes.”
Weir notes that some students are having device issues. He said that the major challenge has to
do with the support where online is concerned, in terms of affordable data. He shared that one
parent says she scales for fish $50 or $60 per pound, so it is extremely difficult for her to afford
different utilities for her child to be online. The principal says he is also aware that there are
students who have devices and Internet at home but they’ve lost interest in school.
He shares that parents are not as strong as the teachers want them to be.
“When you look at it closer, it seems as if the children have greater voices in the household than
parents. The children end up doing what they want to do without parents scolding them. The
pandemic has removed the wall that a lot of individuals and things hide behind. One of them is
weak parents. The support that parents had before, as it relates to discipline in the home, came
from our teachers. Now that our teachers are not Face-To-Face, that sort of discipline cannot be
enforced,” Mr. Weir said.
He also has a message for students who are taking their education for granted. “My conversation had also been, the vehicle out of poverty is education and students need to understand that education is very important. We the educators have a serious responsibility to
communicate as clearly as possible to our students the seriousness of education, and parents need to share the same vision as well because the first institution of learning is the home. It’s going to be important for you to get a formal job, it’s going to be important for you to full out a job application and it’s important for you to be able to communicate,” added Mr. Weir. Weir also speaks of young people who want to make quick cash. He says that they will still need some amount of knowledge to do so. He said that he provides parents with flyers so that they can go on the school campus for assistance. Mr. Weir says that the staff is trying to help, but not all people will be received. However, he points out that registration should not be issue because
students will be accepted with or without paying their school fee.
The Old Harbour High School, St. Catherine.
Fantasia Elliot has been absent from online classes for six weeks. She says that she doesn’t have
an electronic device and is one of few students that Mr. Weir had communicated with.
“He tells me and mommy that if we don’t have a device to use, we should contact the school.
We did that previously, but they never do anything. Every time we call them but them never tell
we anything. I feel like it never makes sense for him to visit, because him never do anything. My
friends try as well and they didn’t get any as well. Them just a come around and say them a do
this and them a do that but them nah do anything,” said Fantasia.
She also said that she when to the school to talk to the relevant personnel but they changed the
conversation to something else. Fantasia is of the view that children whose parents can afford to
purchase devices or those who have devices already are the one who are getting the devices
provided by the Ministry of Education.
Principal Weir is calling for the Education Ministry to have conversations with Jamaica’s main
Internet providers, Digicel and FLOW to have Internet accessibility in more communities across
the island. He also said, that the government should consider Face-to-Face class soon because he
is sorry for this generation, as they’re losing a lot and it’s affecting education.