We need a plan

MONTEGO BAY, St James — President of the Jamaica Association of Principals of Secondary Schools (JAPSS), Anniona Jones wants the country to move away from reacting to disasters as they come and instead craft a policy that can be applied to every situation — from hurricanes to flood waters to droughts.

“I want to move the conversation from repairing broken buildings to actually producing a national model, a model that is going to keep our children learning when the next shock comes — because it is coming. As a matter of fact, one is here; it is called a drought,” she declared.

Jones was speaking Tuesday during a webinar that looked at lessons the country’s education system can learn from last October’s Hurricane Melissa. It was the fourth in the National Resilience Dialogue Series put on by the Higher Education Task Force for Disaster Resilience’s (HEDE).