Above: St Kitts (CJ Photo)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Education Ministers from Organization of Eastern Caribbean States member countries met in Basseterre this week, looking to tackle the problem of creating secure learning environments for students.

The Ministers looked to address the problem by focusing on disadvantaged groups and people, and implementing strategies to allow them to better adjust and succeed in learning environments.

“We may have to look at beefing up our network of guidance counselors to ensure that we can better identify and treat those students who come from abusive situations, who have particular difficulties and challenges in their own circumstances,” said St Kitts and Nevis Education Minister Nigel Carty. “It would mean perhaps trying to see if we can get students to try and pace themselves so that they can achieve the goals and objectives which we all want to achieve, but on a different timeline.”

Carty said that altering the pace of learning was important, as students who are distracted ultimately do harm to themselves and the entire classroom.

“Students who are promoted without having attained certain basic skills like writing, reading spelling, etc, if they are moved into a different level, then that … creates a situation where there is greater likelihood for social exclusion, for deviant behaviour because no student is going to sit quietly when he or she can’t read what’s on the board,” the Minister said. “They will find some way to distract everybody else and to eventually get himself/herself out of the classroom.”