Education plans: PACT versus Progressives

A question that has lingered since the April elections is to what extent the new PACT government’s plans for education would depart from the path laid out by the former Progressives administration.

Comparing the PACT’s Strategic Policy Statement (SPS) to the Progressives Manifesto, the general answer appears to be that the PACT does not plan to take education in a dramatically different direction than the Progressives.

However, the PACT does propose many additional — and ambitious — programmes not mentioned in the Progressives Manifesto, such as free meals in public schools, building nursery classrooms for public schools, free local tertiary education, and reintroducing A-Levels into public high schools.

The SPS calls for hiking government’s annual spending on education to $152 million in 2024, which would be a 50% increase since 2019.

New government, same Minister

The context, of course, is that MP Juliana O’Connor-Connolly crossed over from the Progressives’ side of the aisle to the PACT coalition to serve a 2nd consecutive term as Minister of Education.

O’Connor-Connolly’s return as Education Minister has been lauded by Premier Wayne Panton and Opposition Leader Roy McTaggart alike.

In his parliamentary response to the SPS, McTaggart said that O’Connor-Connolly “stands as a beacon of competence and reassurance in the sea of indecision and prevarication that characterises the government as a whole”.

McTaggart went on to express confidence in O’Connor-Connolly’s education plans and said, “I hope that she has been able to persuade her new colleagues to back her plans and give her the resources she needs to see the job through.”

***Editor’s Note: As we discussed on the last episode of EdBeat, a lot can change between an election and an SPS … or an SPS and the passage of an actual budget. In other words, campaign promises don’t always align with a government’s plans, and those plans don’t always bear out through the process of creating, amending and approving a budget.***

SPS, Manifesto

The SPS introduced last week by Panton is the seminal document laying out the unified vision for the new government of independent lawmakers.

In this light, the SPS can be seen as having 2 purposes: 1) As a ‘policy’ document laying out the PACT’s plans for the next 3 years; and 2) As a ‘political’ document staking out the PACT’s positions and priorities.

The PACT chose to place ‘improving education’ at the very top of the list of 10 ‘broad outcomes’ the government will seek to achieve.

Under that broad outcome, the PACT includes 29 separate programmes, ranging from early years education to continuing learning for seniors.

The Progressives Manifesto published during the campaign set out the “shared Vision for Cayman” of the Progressives and Alliance candidates. Apart from O’Connor-Connolly, members from the group now make up the Official Opposition in Cayman’s Parliament.

PACT vs. Progressives

The PACT’s SPS and the Progressives Manifesto overlap in many areas.

Initiatives proposed by both groups include:

• Finishing the $170 million New John Gray High School project
• Establishing a new school governance body
• Reforming early years’ education
• Improving schools’ technology and providing all students access to technology
• More mental health support for young people
• Additional programmes before and after school hours
• Working with private sector to provide more STEM opportunities for students
• Strengthening TVET programmes (Technical and Vocational Education and Training)

However, the PACT has introduced a number of new projects not mentioned in the Progressives Manifesto. For example:

• Free meals in public schools
• Expand all schools to create nursery classrooms and learning support centres
• Free tertiary education at UCCI and ICCI
• Reintroduce A Levels into public high schools
• Integrate Caymanians and non-Caymanians in school system
• Improve graduation criteria to end social promotion
• Centralised TVET curriculum starting in primary school

On the other hand, the Progressives Manifesto includes some proposals not in the PACT’s SPS.

The biggest ‘omission’ is the Progressives’ pledge that every public school will be rated ‘Good’ or better by the Office of Education Standards by 2025.

Also, the Progressives Manifesto called for several projects on Cayman Brac that are absent from the SPS, such as completing the new high school on the Bluff, converting the existing high school into a TVET campus, creating a school for special needs students, and expanding the UCCI Brac Campus to include Bachelor’s degree programmes.

Education Minister O’Connor-Connolly is now also the Minister for District Administration, which oversees government functions on the Sister Islands.

For the benefit of our readers, we have created a searchable and sortable table comparing the education proposals in the PACT’s SPS and Progressives Manifesto. We have included categories for the proposals that align with goals in the SPS, as well as for capital projects and proposals for Cayman Brac.

Education plans: PACT versus Progressives

PACT calls for major increase in education spending, an array of new programmes

Progressives Manifesto: Complete new John Gray, create ‘skills strategy’, every public school to be rated ‘Good’