BSTU head says parents failing, leaving schools to raise children

Parents abandoning their duty to guide their children has been identified by the head of the Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union (BSTU) as one of the root causes of the recent surge in violence among schoolchildren.

BSTU president Mary Anne Redman complained on Monday that many parents were not fulfilling their responsibilities and were instead turning to schools and other institutions to train their children.

This, she declared, along with a breakdown in traditional values and mores contributed to the alarming situation in the island’s schools.

“There is a rescinding in too many families of the parental duties, and people are leaving institutions like the schools to train and raise up their children, and the schools can’t do it,” Redman said in an interview with Barbados TODAY.

“The initial training and the initial socialisation have to come from the basic societal unit which is the family. The schools can augment and supplement. The schools cannot take over the role of the family, and I think that is where we are seeing a serious problem.”

The BSTU president pointed out that some parents even failed to attend meetings called to address issues involving their children.

“…. Too often, when investigations are done, there is not strong enough parental control and discipline in the household. Some parents don’t turn up to the schools to the interviews they are requested to attend when their children have exhibited deviant behaviour in schools,” Redman asserted.

She used an example of parents refusing to follow protocol when their children returned to school once a suspension is over.

Although the rules indicate parents must accompany their children so there can be discussions with school authorities, Redman pointed out that students sometimes returned to school without their guardians.

“The parents still send the children back to school and, of course, the principals don’t send them home. That is a serious thing. Again, the parents have absolved themselves of the responsibility in that regard,” the union leader said.

Redman was adamant that the solution to violence in schools required a multi-faceted approach.

“It’s a problem that, I think, to address we will need to address from various angles. [There] is no one answer. It has to be a multi-pronged approach to it, involving all the stakeholders. The solution will [require] major stakeholders to come together and put our heads together as to how best we can assess the problems and deal with them for the future of this country. We are too small to be experiencing the levels of instability in our school system, among our young people that we are seeing now on a much too frequent basis,” she contended.

Redman also suggested that changes to the education system could assist in preventing the conflict that occurs.

“The education system has to be tweaked to cater to the needs of the various intelligences the children have so that within the school environment, they are stimulated enough and they feel a sense of achievement and not one of frustration at not having achieved academically,” she said.

The BSTU head’s comments came on the heels of a recent stabbing incident at the Parkinson Memorial Secondary School that resulted in a student being hospitalised, allegations from parents that their children had been threatened by knife-wielding students of Frederick Smith Secondary School, and the summoning of law enforcement officers to investigate an incident at the Deighton Griffith Secondary School.

emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb