09 April 2020
The Education Minister, Senator Tracey Vallois, has issued the following statement:
“I recognise that many parents and carers, students, businesses and charities alike remain deeply concerned about a wide range of issues relating to the impact COVID-19 has had on the provision of childcare and education in the island, including the payment and receipt of fees, the provision of adult learning and impacts on university students to name a few.
“The Government has already made good progress launching multiple business support measures and I am pleased many of these support sectors within my mandate such as private nursery and childminding providers.
“However, I am also very aware that these address only some of the issues caused by COVID-19. Therefore, as described in my statement yesterday, I have established a new project board to review all the funding and fee issues pertaining to nurseries, schools and colleges and will report back on this work later this month.
“The intention is to consider these issues as a whole and to apply a set of fair and even principles rather than deal piecemeal with individual issues and cases and/or sectors and businesses.
“I have asked officers to treat this as a matter of urgency and ask for your continued patience whilst this work is progressed.”