Opposition blasts prime minister over ‘return to nature’ comment | News

The Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) has criticised Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness for what it describes as an attempt to romanticise the difficult conditions under which some Jamaican students have been forced to learn following Hurricane Melissa.

Opposition Spokesperson on Education Damion Crawford said Holness’s comments about students learning under trees at Holland Primary in St Elizabeth were “an insult to the nation’s intellect and sensibilities”.

Speaking at Tuesday’s launch of the Jamaica Reconstruction and Resilience Oversight Committee, Holness suggested that learning did not necessarily have to be confined to four walls, describing the outdoor experience as a “positive return to nature” and recalling it as one of his “favourite” times at school.

Crawford, however, said the situation at Holland Primary was not a choice or an innovative approach to education, but the result of failures by the Government to provide adequate classrooms.

“To suggest that children forced out of sweltering heat in temporary tents to sit outdoors represent a ‘positive return to nature’ … is an attempt to normalise what is clearly a failure of the State to provide an adequate learning environment,” the Opposition said.

The criticism comes as the Government continues to grapple with the repair and reconstruction of schools damaged by Hurricane Melissa nearly a year after the storm.

Crawford said the situation reflected three failures by the administration: the failure to rebuild classrooms in a timely manner, the failure of the alternative tent system and the failure to respond adequately when the temporary arrangements broke down.

He pointed to Government figures showing that only 57 of 681 hurricane-affected schools had reportedly been fully completed by the start of the new school year.

At Holland Primary, a temporary tent intended to accommodate two classrooms reportedly became so hot that teachers and students could not remain inside. Grade 2 and Grade 3 students were subsequently moved outdoors, including under a mango tree and a makeshift bamboo structure.

“A temporary classroom cannot be considered an adequate solution if the stakeholders for whom it was provided are physically unable to remain inside it,” Crawford said, arguing that temporary facilities must provide adequate ventilation, shading, cooling and protection from the elements.

‘TONE-DEAF’

The People’s National Party Youth Organisation (PNPYO) has also condemned Holness’s remarks, with General Secretary Peta-Gay Ferguson describing them as “tone-deaf” and lacking compassion for affected children.

“These children are not sitting under trees because their teachers chose an innovative outdoor experience,” Ferguson said. “They are there because their Government has failed to provide them with adequate classrooms.”

She questioned whether Holness had considered how parents would feel hearing that, almost a year after a hurricane, their children’s inadequate learning environment was being portrayed positively.

“How many children of Government ministers or parliamentarians are being sent to school each morning to sit beneath a tree because their classroom remains damaged?” Ferguson asked.

She also pointed to other schools struggling with temporary arrangements, including Ocho Rios Primary, where staff reportedly constructed makeshift classrooms to avoid rotational scheduling for about 1,100 students, and Maggotty High, where eight wooden temporary classrooms were funded by the National Education Trust.

“Government cannot admit recovery is too slow, then romanticise the consequences of that failure,” Ferguson said. “Cut the PR. Stop dressing up hardship as resilience and failure as innovation.”

The Opposition is calling for all temporary classroom tents to be inspected and equipped with proper flooring, ventilation, shading and cooling, including fans and portable air-conditioning where necessary.

It is also demanding a transparent timeline for completion of permanent classrooms.

“Our children do not need a return to nature,” Crawford said. “They need a return to normalcy.”

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