AKASH SAMA­ROO

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says putting the na­tion's chil­dren back on a path of aca­d­e­m­ic ex­cel­lence will be an ad­di­tion­al re­quire­ment in the up­com­ing bud­get.

Speak­ing at the Spot­light on the Econ­o­my fo­rum this morn­ing, Dr Row­ley lament­ed the im­pact COVID-19 has had on ed­u­ca­tion at a glob­al lev­el.

Re­fer­ring to the USA as an ex­am­ple, Dr Row­ley said:

"Well off" chil­dren would have seen a de­cline in per­for­mance by 3%."

He added that those who were not as well off would have seen a de­cline in per­for­mance by around 13%.

The Prime Min­is­ter said this coun­try has sim­i­lar if not worse con­di­tions.

He said the chal­lenge now is not just to have an or­di­nary school year but to im­prove class­room per­for­mance.

Mean­while, the Prime Min­is­ter con­grat­u­lat­ed his ad­min­is­tra­tion say­ing the fis­cal be­hav­iour of the Gov­ern­ment has been ex­em­plary.

Dr Row­ley said he is op­ti­mistic about the coun­try's fi­nan­cial fu­ture go­ing in­to the up­com­ing bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion and even de­clared that the re­tail sec­tor is al­most as vi­brant as it has ever been.