Jewel's Podcast: Recent Episodes
Jewel
COVID-19 and Its Impact on Caribbean StudentsThis is a three-part podcast series that examines the impact of COVID-19 on Caribbean students. It highlights the challenges, inequities, and struggles faced by students, their parents, and their teachers in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago during this global pandemic. The series uses the pandemic as a starting point to examine what needs to change in Caribbean education systems to make them more responsive to the needs of young people and ensure greater success for all. This project received funding through a grant from the National Geographic Society's COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Journalists.
In the final episode of this NatGeo-funded series, we hear from education experts in the region. Dr. Didacus Jules, former head of the Caribbean Examinations Council and current Director General of the OECS, explains where the current system of education is failing the region and one initiative being undertaken by the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States in an effort to help fix the problem.
This second podcast looks at the debacle that unfolded following the CXC's adjustment of school-leaving examinations in 2020 in the face of the pandemic. Through the voices of those affected in Barbados and Trinidad, the podcast depicts the subsequent protests by parents, students and teachers and their struggles with the Caribbean Examinations Council to have the poor grades awarded in 2020 rescinded. We hear the impact of the lower grades on students' plans and dreams and the thoughts of the attorney-at-law who is helping the affected parties in their bid to seek redress. The podcast also calls into question the Caribbean education system's obsession with high-stakes exams as the final determinant of children's future and worth.
In this first podcast in the series sponsored by the National Geographic Society's COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Journalists, we hear from an economically disadvantaged mother whose husband struggles to provide for his family. She shares how the shift to online learning in Barbados stretched her family's already limited resources to the limit, and her strategies for ensuring her son could continue his education. TTUTA president Mrs. Antonia De Freitas and Asja Girls' College chemistry teacher Ms. Sherry Khan also share the struggles many disadvantaged students are facing and how the pandemic has further exacerbated the barriers to their learning. We also hear the experiences of some of those directly affected here in Trinidad. And we share the expert insights and analysis of Dr. Didacus Jules, former head of the Caribbean Examinations Council and current Director General of the OECS, on the topic.