Parenting initiative, behavioural reform in new education push

A national parenting programme and a new behavioural support system called VIBE will be launched in September as part of sweeping reforms to improve school discipline and student support, Chief Education Officer Dr Ramona Archer-Bradshaw announced on Monday.

In a press briefing elaborating Minister of Educational Transformation Chad Blackman’s statement on education transformation, Dr Archer-Bradshaw said the ministry would intensify work with parents, teachers and students to strengthen learning environments and tackle delinquent behaviour.

“This ministry … will be focusing on a parenting programme. Parents engaging parents, parents empowering parents … we will be going out and sharing materials with parents at the supermarket, at the gas station, on the blocks, because some parents just don’t attend seminars,” she explained. “We … will be reaching out in collaboration with the [Inter-American Development Bank]… to make sure that we get our parents on board, that they understand how important it is to parent and to parent well.”

Emphasising that professional development remained a cornerstone of the reform, Dr Archer-Bradshaw said: “We need to ensure that our educational leaders and our teachers are equipped with the skills to ensure a positive and conducive learning environment,” highlighting ongoing partnerships with Erdiston Teachers’ Training College.

A centrepiece of the new initiatives will be the VIBE programme – Values-driven, Inclusive, Behavioural Excellence and Empowered Learning Environments – designed to empower principals and teachers to set and enforce positive behavioural standards, supported by systems of recognition and reinforcement for students.

“We want our principals and our teachers to be able to set the standards … and enforce them when it comes to student behaviour,” she said. “But we do know that some of our children have social and economic challenges. So that is another facet that we need to address.”

She noted the expansion of student support services, which have grown from 12 officers in 2020 to 40 today, including psychologists, social workers, counsellors and school safety officers. “They go into the schools … they meet the students on a regular basis if they’re encountering challenges. They put on whole programmes for the school, sometimes they go per level, depending on the needs,” she said.

Further partnerships include work with the Barbados Defence Force under the Barbados Youth Upliftment Programme, which assigns police officers and soldiers to schools as mentors. “Let them know that they can fulfill their potential … that your end does not depend on where you start, but that along the way, change can occur so that you can reach your goals,” she said.

Beyond disciplinary policy, Dr Archer-Bradshaw highlighted conflict resolution and social and emotional learning as critical areas of focus. “Our children need a lot of psychosocial support … and while our student support services has been doing quite a good job in having workshops on conflict resolution … there’s a bit more that needs to be done,” she said. “Where our students wouldn’t just be going in and learning the math and the English and the science … but everything must be undergirded by the social and emotional learning.”

She thanked both international and local partners for their support, including the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, the XQ Institute, as well as individuals and the private sector.

“To date we have received funding and support … and I must say at this point in time that all of the support does not have to come in the form of money. We need the support of persons as well in terms of their time, in terms of their expertise, and we welcome that,” she said. (SB)