Preschool teaching ratios will be 1 to 10

FRIDAY, AUGUST 12: Parental concerns that some pre-schools may be understaffed are “completely unfounded”, government said today.

The Bermuda Sun ran an article in today’s paper highlighting the parents’ fears that their children would be in classes where the teacher-student ratio would be 1:15.

They said that could adversely affect their child’s education.

But today Permanent Secretary Warren Jones said that the 1:10  ratio had not changed.

He added: “Parental concerns regarding preschools expressed in today’s newspapers are completely unfounded.

“The reality is that there has been no change to the enrolled number of students, nor any reduction to the number of teaching staff at any of the named preschools.

“The crux of the complaints seem to be emanating from a small group of individuals who are in fact teaching administrators. And they are of the view that they should be treated as non-teaching administrators although their Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) and terms of work state otherwise.

“There may be a misunderstanding that these administrators are not teachers. In fact they are teaching administrators and there is no provision in their CBA to state that there are pure administrators.

“Furthermore, because of their teaching duties, and as stipulated in the CBA each school is afforded a substitute teacher on a daily basis so that they can carry out their administrative functions."

The Bermuda Sun had contacted government yesterday to try and get a comment on the concerns of the parents but received no response.