Parents are raising hell after the virtual learning platform being used by the Ministry of Education crashed on the first day of virtual classes for public school students.
As a result, students and teachers were unable to access the virtual learning platform on Tuesday morning.
When students first attempted to log on this morning, they got a blank screen with the message “ 504 Gateway Time-out” at the top of the screen.
When they tried again later, they got the message “Oops it looks like something unexpected occurred.”
Another message also popped up and read, “A database error occurred” followed by a quote from Murphy’s Law “Anything that can go wrong usually does”.
One irate parent wrote,”I have three kids in school and no luck with MOE. This is frustrating.”
One mother wrote, “This ain’t making no sense. This system can’t get up for these kids to be in school”
Teachers tell the Gallery that all schools in the public education system are using the same system. Therefore, they are all experiencing issues with the virtual learning platform this morning.
For weeks, Bahamas Unions of Teachers President Belinda Wilson has raised questions about the readiness of the virtual system and lobbied for more training for teachers ahead of the start of the new school year.
Some schools on New Providence had prepared for face-to-face learning. However, Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis announced last week that schools on New Providence and Abaco will have to conduct fully virtual classes, until further notice, due to a steady rise in COVID-19 cases on those two islands.
Face-to-face learning stopped in March at the on-set of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Parents are asking what education officials have been doing over the past seven months to prepare for virtual lessons.
It places students who have been out of school for months at a serious disadvantage and follows reports by some public school teachers that the tablets they were given to host lessons were not compatible with the virtual learning platform.