Ministry introduces national student development tracker

Parents across Barbados will “shortly” receive official letters detailing the real cost of their children’s education, as part of a pioneering initiative by the Ministry of Educational Transformation to underscore the value of free primary and secondary schooling – showing a zero balance to the parent, minister Chad Blackman announced.

A new national education tracker will also be designed to monitor students’ development from primary through secondary school, he revealed in an interview with Barbados TODAY.

He said: “One of the things that the ministry, in partnership with the Ministry of Finance, is going to roll out is to ensure that we give the cost for each child at the primary level and secondary level, and at the bottom of that it will say ‘the cost to you is zero dollars’, but above we will show the value of it.

“What that will do is to show the country, the parents and specifically the children, what we have been spending on their development through education; this is what the cost is to you as a parent, which is zero dollars. And for the avoidance of doubt, that will continue to be so; there’s no payment for anybody [parents]. But we will roll it out shortly.”

The measure was intended to help parents and students better appreciate the value of their education, which is free at the point of delivery, noting that taxpayers were funding millions of dollars in schooling each year, said Blackman. He stressed that the ministry wanted households to understand the financial investment behind every child’s education and saw it as part of a broader strategy to help the country value education more deeply and to encourage greater responsibility in students as they navigate this critical period of their lives and development.

The documents would serve as a national reminder of the real price of free education at the point of delivery, the minister said.

“The ministry and its team will be sharing, over the next few weeks, videos and key points on the critical importance of our young people valuing their education. For every young man who loses his life to crime, that is a collective investment that we cannot get back — not just from the point of view of the cost spent over the years, but the potential that he could have brought to society, through his God-given potential, gifts, ideas, all nurtured through education.”

He said Barbados had grown accustomed to free education, and the nation occasionally needed to pause and reflect on its value. “We’ve gotten accustomed to receiving free education, and we take it for granted, but sometimes you have to remind people of what its value [is].”

Blackman explained that the initiative was part of a wider effort to foster a greater sense of national consciousness in the investment in the country’s future. “The idea is to help this country to now realise this is where we are. We all pay for education through our taxes, and there’s a collective responsibility that we have to now remind the citizens [that] this is what governments over the years have done for our people, and equally, this is what you must also continue to take great pride in, with respect to what has been done over the decades in our development.”

Blackman said the government had never previously provided households with a breakdown of these educational costs. “When you look at the value of education throughout the years, irrespective of administration post-Independence, we’ve spent millions on education, and at the point of delivery it is free — but we’ve never given the household a breakdown of what that costs.”

He added that this reminder was necessary as the country grappled with youth crime and emotional instability among students. “A lot of the crime that we’re seeing through our young people, at the root of it, a lot of these young people sometimes they’re not even thinking one step ahead — they act in a moment of passion, realising after that the consequence is there, and if they had thought it through they wouldn’t end up in a situation as being before the law courts or in prison, for example.

“We are fighting a situation where some of our young people are not able to navigate and control their emotions, and ultimately ending up in violence. I also want to reiterate that violence in schools will continue to be a no-no, bullying is a no-no — there’s an absolute zero tolerance to that. Fighting with and attacking teachers cannot be.”

Alongside the parental letters, Blackman confirmed that the ministry was moving ahead with a comprehensive tracker for every child enrolled in the public system. “We have been discussing a profile card of every single child in Barbados that will stay with you from primary school all the way up until secondary school, so that we can track your socio-emotional development. We can track your academic development, and we can track your technical skills and also your interests so that when you leave school, we have a full picture of who you are.”

He said early detection of challenges was central to the new approach. “We have to be able to identify very early if a child is going off track academically, emotionally or socially and intervene much earlier, rather than waiting until it reaches the stage of violence or disengagement. This is about making sure that no child falls through the cracks in this country ever again.”

sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb