BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Wed. Feb.17, 2021– Starting Monday, March 15, 2021, multiple Ministers of Education from around the Caribbean are set to meet virtually for a series of 60-90 minute sessions to address school safety and the need to coordinate preventative policies and actions to strengthen the education sector. The sessions are being carried out through the Virtual Caribbean Safe School Initiative (CSSI), and will conclude on Friday, March 26.
The Virtual Caribbean Safe School Initiative (CSSI) Pre-Ministerial Forum was set in motion through the collaboration of several branches of the United Nations, along with the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) and the governments of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and St. Martin; and it was first launched in April 2017 during the First Caribbean Ministerial Forum on School Safety. The title of this year’s forum is “Regional Review on School Safety in the context of Systemic Risk,” which will focus on assessing the education sector’s response and recovery after COVID-19; and its response and recovery prior to and during the hurricane season.
Each forum is to be prefaced by and concluded with high-level sessions involving the various ministers, who will be considering how their various Ministries of Education can develop strategies to achieve school safety, and will report the outcome of each session to their Permanent Secretaries and Ministers of Education.
The sessions are aimed at strengthening and establishing partnerships with other sectors, as well as with other stakeholders and practitioners, so that the risks faced in the education sector can be better understood and managed.
A recent report by the CDEMA said, “Among the expected outcomes of the forum are recommendations for shaping the CSSI and its Road Map to be tabled at the Third Ministerial Forum on Safe Schools, which is scheduled to take place in early 2022. Additionally, the organizers intend to guarantee the link with the next regional and global Platforms for Disaster Risk Reduction, as well as in the CDEMA-organized CDM Conference, by identifying key CSSI messages to be brought forward.”