Deep clean’: BUT wants mandatory annual industrial cleaning at all schools

Schools across Barbados should undergo mandatory industrial cleaning at least once every year to tackle recurring environmental and health concerns that disrupt teaching and learning, said Barbados Union of Teachers vice president Julian Pierre.

Pierre, who chairs the union’s occupational safety and health committee, made the call as the St Ambrose Primary School remains closed to facilitate additional ventilation, following recent industrial cleaning triggered by a cockroach infestation.

While welcoming what he described as improvements in school maintenance, Pierre said a more structured and preventative approach is needed to reduce recurring problems.

Pierre said: “The Ministry of Educational Transformation has made a greater effort in terms of their maintenance programme and scheduling of work being done to the schools,” Pierre said. “All work is not being left until the vacation. What can be done on the evenings after three o’clock, [or] on weekends, are done. They also utilise the other vacation periods, which would be the Christmas period as well as the Easter period. So generally, we are seeing greater effort with the maintenance, which is obviously welcomed.”

But many of the island’s school plants are ageing and require more comprehensive, routine attention, the union leader said.

“We know that we are dealing with ageing plants, some plants 40 plus years old,” he said. “One of our major concerns would be our recommendation to have all public schools cleaned in terms of an industrial cleaning, at least a minimum of once a year, possibly in the summer.”

Pierre added that industrial cleaning is often only carried out after a major issue arises.

“Our concern is the fact that most schools are not industrially cleaned unless there’s an issue, or the last time it would have been cleaned would have been more than five years ago or more than ten years ago in some cases,” he said.

To make the process more manageable, he suggested spreading industrial cleaning across multiple school breaks.

“If there can be a regime where all the schools are industrially cleaned over a period of time, whether they do a section in Easter, a section in summer, a section in Christmas, rather than try to do all of the schools during the summer period – and that would be primary and secondary as well as nursery – that I think would alleviate some of the issues.”

Pierre also pointed to the need for stronger coordination between ministries and health authorities.

“It is not only the cleaning of the property itself in terms of the building, but also the environs,” he said. “So this is where health [officers] who did say that they are supposed to make routine checks. They’re just supposed to check a certain number of schools in the vicinity of the polyclinics over a period of time.”

He highlighted concerns around water quality, overgrown vegetation and pest control.

“So when we think about the checks on water tanks in terms of water quality, when we think of bush in particular areas, they know that we’ve had issues at certain schools with regards to the rodents… So, it is a greater cohesion between the ministries for certain things to be done that we reduce the likelihood of certain problems, which also includes regular baiting of schools [for rodents].”

Pierre acknowledged the efforts of the ministry’s Education Technical Management Unit (ETMU) and the Maintenance Department but said standards for industrial cleaning must be consistently enforced.

“The ETMU, the Maintenance Department of the Ministry of Educational Transformation… has been making greater effort in terms of the maintenance of the schools,” he said. “I’m not going to say that all is perfect…there were still a few concerns in terms of persons who are contracted for industrial cleaning and industrial cleaning in the true sense of the word, which does not mean just wiping off furniture with a disinfectant.”