Education Minister Rolston Anglin MP has told Caymanian parents to “stop making excuses” and take greater responsibility for their children’s education as he moves to restrict pupils’ use of mobile phones in government schools.

Speaking on Friday at the Education Professionals’ Welcome, which brings together staff from across Cayman’s government schools ahead of the new academic year, Anglin argued that improving educational outcomes could not be left to teachers and schools alone.

His message to families was direct.

“Caymanian parents need to stop making excuses.”

Schools are due to reopen to students on Wednesday, 26 August, with education officials using the annual gathering to reflect on performance and set priorities for the 2026-27 academic year.

Minister Anglin said parents would have to become active participants in their children’s learning if the education system was to build on recent progress.

“Parents need to understand that if you’re not going to actively participate and support your schools, your children will not meet the destination you’re hoping and praying that they will,” he said.

But the minister’s challenge comes as the government’s own education data identifies problems extending beyond the home - including uneven attainment, variations in the quality of provision and socio-economic barriers.

And his crackdown on phones creates another contrast: pupils are being told to put their devices away, while the rules governing Cayman’s Parliament permit MPs to consult electronic devices during proceedings, subject to restrictions.

‘Son of a domestic helper’

Anglin rooted his appeal to parents in his own upbringing, telling education professionals that his achievements rested on sacrifices made by his late mother.

“I sit on the shoulders of my mother, of blessed memory. I’m proud that I am the son of a domestic helper,” he said.

The minister pointed to graduating from a major U.S. university and passing his professional licensing examination on his first attempt as among his proudest achievements.

His argument was that education alone had not produced those results. Family sacrifice, expectations at home and taking advantage of opportunities had also mattered.

That personal experience explains some of the force behind Anglin’s message to parents. It does not, however, establish how far insufficient parental involvement is responsible for the weaknesses that remain across Cayman’s government schools.

Anglin said parents would have greater opportunities to engage with schools, but did not set out in his remarks what those opportunities would involve, how participation would be measured or what evidence government was using to assess current levels of parental involvement.

Phones down in school

Mobile phones were one practical example Anglin gave of a problem confronting teachers.

The minister said educators had complained about pupils using phones during lessons. But the evidence, he said, had not come from teachers alone.

“Not only did the teachers complain about this, I had parents screenshot WhatsApp conversations coming from their children during class time.”

The example illustrates an obvious classroom-management problem: pupils communicating on their devices when they were supposed to be participating in lessons.

But it also complicates the broader argument about disengaged parents.

In the cases Anglin described, parents had noticed what their children were doing, kept evidence of the conversations and brought it to the attention of the minister.

WhatsApp itself is not the same issue as social-media use, and restrictions on mobile phones in schools should not be conflated with the government’s separate push towards an under-16 social-media restriction.

That distinction matters because Cayman is now having several overlapping debates about children, technology and who should be responsible for controlling their use of it.

Phones in Parliament

There is also a conspicuous contrast between the restrictions being imposed on pupils and the rules applying to the politicians making public policy.

Mobile devices are not prohibited in Cayman’s Parliament.

Parliamentary protocol permits members to consult handheld electronic devices during proceedings, provided their use does not cause a disturbance or undermine the decorum of the Chamber. Members are expected to use devices briefly and in connection with their participation in proceedings.

MPs do not have unrestricted phone use. Parliamentary rules say devices should not be used for correspondence, while telephone calls, voicemail, photography and audio or video recording are prohibited in the Chamber.

A parliamentary sitting and a school classroom are plainly different environments, and the rules are not directly comparable.

But the distinction is notable as government argues for tighter control over pupils’ access to devices during the school day: adults conducting the country’s legislative business may retain and consult their devices under rules governing appropriate use, while children in government schools face a more restrictive approach.

The policy question is therefore not simply whether phones are distracting. It is also whether appropriate use can be managed through rules and enforcement, or whether removing access is considered necessary in the school environment.

Young Caymanians reject social-media restriction

The school-phone debate is unfolding alongside a wider government push to restrict young people’s access to social media.

Cayman’s elected parliamentarians have backed a proposal to restrict social-media access for children under 16, placing responsibility for age verification and enforcement on platform operators rather than criminalising children.

When young Caymanians were given the opportunity to debate the broader policy through the Summer Youth Parliament in 2026, they rejected it.

Among those challenging the proposal was youth parliamentarian Taygan McFarlane, from Cayman Brac, who questioned whether Cayman could realistically enforce such a measure against multinational technology companies.

“Sending a regulatory notice from George Town to Meta headquarters in Menlo Park, California is like sending a strongly worded letter to a hurricane – you feel better writing it, the hurricane’s still coming.”

The argument was not simply that young people wanted continued access to social media. It raised a practical question about enforcement: whether restrictions enacted in George Town could effectively control platforms operated by global companies beyond Cayman’s jurisdiction.

The Youth Parliament’s rejection also introduces a voice that can easily be lost in a debate conducted among ministers, teachers and parents - that of the young people whose use of technology government is seeking to regulate.

It does not determine what government should do. Youth Parliament is not the elected legislature. But the disagreement demonstrates that young Caymanians themselves are not united behind the approach favoured by elected MPs.

Government’s data tells a broader story

Phones and parental responsibility are also only part of the educational picture presented by government’s own figures.

The Department of Education Services’ (DES) latest data report describes an interconnected education system whose effectiveness depends on the quality of provision at different stages and the strength of transitions between them.

The same report acknowledges that “disparities in resources, variations in quality, and socio-economic barriers” continue to present challenges.

And when DES considers what should be done for pupils who are struggling, many of its proposed remedies fall inside the education system rather than the family home.

The department calls for personalised learning plans, a stronger and more coherent intervention framework, systematic monitoring, regular assessment to identify emerging barriers and continued professional development to equip educators with evidence-based intervention strategies.

None of that means parental involvement is unimportant.

It does mean that the government’s own analysis describes educational performance as the product of a more complicated set of factors than parental responsibility alone.

Progress - but significant gaps remain

There is evidence behind education officials’ assertion that Cayman’s government schools have made progress.

At Key Stage 2, reading attainment increased by 19 percentage points between 2022 and 2025. Grammar, punctuation and spelling rose from 58% to 68%. Mathematics reached 51% in 2025, nine percentage points higher than in 2022.

But the same data contains warning signs.

Writing attainment fell from 52% in 2024 to 45% in 2025. Just 33% met the combined standard across reading, writing and mathematics.

DES itself attributes broader improvements to evidence-based teaching practices and strengthened teacher-development programmes, which it says have contributed to better instructional quality, greater consistency and higher student engagement.

At secondary level, the results are also uneven.

Among Year 11 public-school pupils, DES reported an 82% pass rate in English Language and 73% in Integrated Science in 2025, compared with 54% in mathematics.

Those figures cannot establish why individual pupils succeed or struggle. Nor do differences between subjects prove that parental engagement is unrelated to attainment.

They do caution against reducing performance to a single explanation.

The same pupils can produce substantially different results across different subjects, while DES identifies curriculum, teaching, assessment, early identification and targeted intervention among the factors requiring attention.

‘The data is really important’

Mark Ray, Director of the Department of Education Services, told the Education Professionals’ Welcome that progress should be recognised, but also interrogated.

“It’s important that we reflect on the progress that we’re making as a system, because it’s important to where we have come from,” he said.

For Ray, the numbers were useful precisely because they could identify both success and weakness.

“The data is really important. It helps us to recognise where we’re progressing and determine where we need to develop,” he said.

And he warned against treating improvement as an end in itself.

“There has been meaningful progress, and we should acknowledge and celebrate the progress that’s being made. But the question really is, how does that progress become stronger? What is it that we need to do to make it deeper, to make it more substantial?”

The department’s own answer spreads responsibility across the system.

Its literacy strategy says progress requires government leaders to provide policy support and resources, administrators to implement programmes effectively, teachers to provide high-quality instruction, parents to support learning at home and communities to value educational achievement.

That is a substantially broader prescription than parental responsibility alone.

What does ‘stop making excuses’ mean in practice?

Anglin’s remarks therefore leave an important evidential question.

If government believes inadequate parental involvement is holding back further improvement, what evidence shows the scale of the problem?

The material reviewed by TCJ does not establish how parental engagement is being measured across government schools, whether it differs significantly between schools or communities, or how strongly any such differences correlate with pupil attainment.

There is also a difference between a parent who chooses not to engage and one who faces practical barriers to doing so.

Government’s own report acknowledges socio-economic barriers within education. And the Ministry, in describing its Early Childhood Assistance Programme, expressly recognises that financial circumstances can affect families and says the programme enables vulnerable parents to remain in employment or pursue training while their children receive early education.

That is not evidence that employment, childcare, transport or financial pressures explain low parental participation in Cayman’s government schools. The available data does not support such a conclusion.

But it does illustrate why establishing the reasons for disengagement matters before all inadequate participation can be characterised as parents “making excuses”.

There are also examples of schools trying to bring parents into pupils’ learning. DES says family maths nights have been used to extend positive mathematical experiences beyond the classroom.

If greater parental engagement is to become a central education policy for 2026-27, the next questions are therefore practical ones: what will parents be asked to do, what support will they receive, and how will government know whether the approach has worked?

Accountability works both ways

Anglin’s underlying proposition - that parents have responsibilities towards their children’s education - is not contradicted by the education data.

But neither does the data support treating parents as the sole explanation for the shortcomings that remain.

Government determines education policy and allocates public resources. DES administers the government-school system. School leaders and teachers carry responsibility for provision, teaching and intervention. Parents have responsibilities at home, while pupils themselves have responsibilities for behaviour and learning.

The government’s own report recognises that shared responsibility. It credits improvements partly to better teaching and professional development, identifies weaknesses requiring intervention inside schools and acknowledges disparities in resources, quality and socio-economic circumstances.

Even Anglin’s phone example cuts in more than one direction. Pupils were apparently using WhatsApp during lessons, but some of the people reporting that behaviour to government were the parents now being asked to become more involved.

And as government seeks tighter controls on children’s access to phones and social media, Parliament operates its own model: MPs may retain and consult electronic devices, but within rules designed to prevent them interfering with proceedings.

Those differences do not make the environments equivalent, nor do they establish that the school-phone policy is wrong.

They do put the principle of responsibility at the centre of the debate.

Anglin has told Caymanian parents to “stop making excuses”.

As the new school year begins, the government’s own evidence suggests accountability will have to extend to both sides of the school gate.