Dickinson: education reform should begin with teachers
A government backbencher said teachers should be at the centre of public education reform as he continued his case to lead the Progressive Labour Party on Thursday night.
Curtis Dickinson, a former Minister of Finance, discussed education, safety and other topics during a fireside chat at Willowbank Resort in Sandys.
About 150 people attended the event moderated by speaker and podcaster Deshay Caines.
Mr Dickinson recently met with public schoolteachers and said many thought education reform was happening to them, rather than them being part of the change.
He explained: “I think we have to recognise that teachers play a very important role — they’re on the front line, their observations, input and opinions are very important to how we can turn this thing around and be effective in delivering quality education to our children.”
Mr Dickinson added that a lot needs to be done to restore parents’ confidence in Bermuda’s public school system.
He said students should know how to read and work with numbers, as well as “have good social and emotional skills and understand how to conduct themselves in a work situation”.
He explained: “We need to bring back that confidence through these reforms so that people feel they can put their children in public school environments and that they can feel comfortable that when they finish, they can compete with everybody else.”
The comments came less than two months after Crystal Caesar, the former Minister of Education, resigned from the ministry and the PLP senate and Diallo Rabain returned to the position he previously held from 2017 to 2025.
Ms Caesar, who served as MP from 2020 to 2025, had paused proposed reforms, which included abolishing middle schools and introducing a two-tier system, but Mr Rabain stated these plans were back on the table.
Mr Dickinson, who served as finance minister from 2018 to 2022, threw his hat into the ring in April to succeed David Burt as the next Premier and leader of the PLP.
Attendees at the fireside chat on Thursday included Ms Caesar, Wayne Caines, another former PLP and minister, with Emily Gail Dill, the Minister of the Cabinet Office, Dennis Lister III, the Junior Minister of Justice and party chairwoman Dawn Simmons.
Mr Dickinson added that Bermuda has lost its sense of community, which could be linked to a rise in crime and antisocial behaviour.
He explained: “We need to take a break from this nonsense around ‘[it’s] my child, leave me alone’. It’s actually not your child, it’s our child and our children, and we need to recapture that.”
He added: “Community organisations, churches and neighbours being just a little bit more nosy and a little bit more caring about what’s going on in their environment — that goes a long way.”
“I want to be someone who says what they mean and means what they say,” Curtis Dickinson, PLP leadership candidate, explained at a lunch and solve for men at Pier Six yesterday.
Mr Dickinson was asked why he decided to run for the party’s top job at the special event designed for men to speak about leadership and community issues in Bermuda.
The MP for Pembroke South East said: “My plan had been to do five years of politics. I am now in year eight. So, why now?
“We are at an interesting point in our country. The gap between those who have and those who don't has only grown.
“Doing my own thinking, I asked the question to myself — ‘why not me?’.”
He added: “Ultimately I want what I think is right for this country and so I'm offering myself up for leadership.”
“When Covid happened and we didn't have infrastructure in place to get people money, it was me and my team who broke the rules to get people what they needed.
“I wasn't concerned about my political future. I was concerned about doing the right thing for the people of Bermuda.”
Session moderator Wayne Caines was only able to get through five of the 17 questions due to the level of engagement from the audience.
They managed to cover housing, education and touched on finance, all from a male perspective.
Talking about the role men can play in helping the next generation, Mr Dickinson said it was important for them to be present, open to the idea of sharing, mentoring younger people and being actively involved in the community.
He said: “We have to be willing to be vulnerable and sharing our wins as well as our failures, with our sons in particular.”
Mr Dickinson also noted that addressing health problems sooner, increasing the number of clinics on the island and supporting people in their homes can all reduce the cost of care in Bermuda.
He said: “We as Black people suffer from a bit of an epidemic in Bermuda around hypertension, diabetes and kidney disease.
“We need to start addressing those things sooner, when the cost of actually fixing them is a whole lot less, because when they spiral out of control the cost is borne by all of us. That is what we’re seeing in our rising healthcare costs.”
Mr Dickinson also cited a need to provide additional and more affordable housing, but noted that the Government cannot achieve this alone.
He explained: “There is an opportunity for the Government to come together with the private sector to alleviating this problem through creative financing, creative funding and thoughts around planning approvals, access to land, a whole range of opportunities for us to work together to bring more housing online sooner rather than later.”
Mr Dickinson also discussed a plan for Bermuda’s infrastructure, which he called “the unhuman healthcare crisis”, and said the Government is in a better position now to address these issues than before.
He said: “That does not mean we can now be reckless with money and that’s why having a national infrastructure plan is important.”
He called for “identifying those things that are critical infrastructure assets that we can start saving or investing to replace”.
Jason Hayward, the Minister of Economy and Labour, will challenge Mr Dickinson for PLP leadership at the party’s delegates conference in October.
You must be Registered or to post comment or to vote.
