Give more power in education to teachers and parents

A local university lecturer is worried that the required changes to the education system could be retarded, unless the Ministry of Education re-allocates some of its central control over the service.

University of the West Indies (UWI) law lecturer Dr Ronnie Yearwood is strongly advocating a more equitable power-sharing between the ministry, teachers, parents, students and boards of management of public schools in Barbados.

Delivering the recent 25^th Annual John Cumberbatch Memorial Lecture entitled: Teachers at the Heart of Educational Recovery, Dr Yearwood, said that for example, while the ministry may announce all the changes it wants, only teachers can make those changes work.

“I think part of putting teachers at the heart of education will have to occur on two fronts; decentralization of power from the ministry and central authorities to empower teachers, and more choice in the system to empower parents and students,” said Dr Yearwood.

“We also have to focus on making schools better places to learn and teach, provide more opportunities for teacher training, [provide for] decentralization of power from the ministry to properly equip teachers and school boards to manage the schools,” suggested Dr Yearwood, who is also a qualified social and political scientist.

The former lecturer at the Durham Law School in the United Kingdom drew on the “educational radicalism” of Cumberbatch, the late revered president of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT),  to ground his argument for more meaningful, practical and equitable changes to the educational system.

“Radical leadership, therefore, requires a self-realisation of the role of the teacher in society, as apart from the daily role of teaching. It is this that provides for reimagining education in bold ways and setting out to actually try to move from reimagining to practical implementation,” he added.

Dr Yearwood, a former research officer in the Prime Minister’s Office, also suggested stripping principals of some of their control over schools.

“Let us start with Boards of Management. These need to be empowered to run schools and not have some principals trying to run schools as mini fiefdoms. There are too many stories of principals exercising favouritism with resources, benefits and promotions,” said the former Chairman of the Board of Management of the Alexandra School.

He was highly critical of how boards are run under the current structure, describing them as decorated talk shops that can achieve little, unless they assert persuasive authority.

“Board chairs are expected to smile sweetly at graduation and readily hand over donations or resources to the school principals, but at times, how dare the board push for change such as including teachers in the affairs of the school…whether to provide more budget oversight, more training and for teachers to have a general say in how the school works and where the school goes for the benefit of the students,” he declared.

“Principals who at times can seem unprepared to listen to students, parents or teachers, while they are emboldened by a strong central ministry, but at the same time with weak ministerial leadership who is then unlikely to get changes in the system, especially when the rank and file of the teachers are an afterthought for change.”

Regarding the fixed term contracts which he said the minister has advocated for principals. Dr Yearwood said: “This is short-term in trying to shake up a system where some supposedly educational leaders capture and hold schools and change hostage. It is a half measure at best, at worse it creates chaos without change,” Dr Yearwood told his virtual audience.

He argued that like most things, even though the Minister of Education spoke about it years ago, nothing has been done about it.

The attorney-at-law was adamant that while the law provides for the effective authority of boards which could be part of decentralizing of power from the centre to the teachers, this was not happening because of a “lack of leadership at the top.”

Dr Yearwood questioned why there are no teachers on school boards which could allow their views to be fed into school policy and daily practices.

He also sought to make a case for those teachers who are required to do their jobs online in a COVID environment, but have not been provided with the appropriate internet service at home.

“Home internet is a tool that teachers need just like chalk used to be. All [the] talk about technology in education is rubbish without access to the internet,” the educator contended.

Dr Yearwood also addressed the controversial issue of abolition of the Common Entrance Examination or 11-Plus, which involves the transfer of primary school students to secondary level based on their academic performance on a single test.

“The removal of the 11-Plus is not a one-stop solution to education reform, nor is the vapid idea of making every school a Harrison or Queen’s College. What does that mean? Every school does not need to be an HC or QC,” he suggested.

“The only way educational zoning works is if students and parents view all schools similarly which means the quality of the school plants are of a similar standard and the abilities of the teachers and the resources at their disposal are similar,” Dr Yearwood argued.

The lecture was organised by the BUT. (EJ)