Education chief commends teachers for their efforts over two years of the pandemic

Teachers across this country’s public sector have received a passing grade from Chief Education Officer Dr Ramona Archer Bradshaw for their work over the last two years of school that was primarily conducted online.

In fact, the senior education official said she would not condone any condemnation of teachers for the stellar work that they continue to do.

“Teachers put in work before they get to the classroom. Teachers need to plan their lessons so that they can be effective, they need to research the kinds of assignments that should be given to students, they need to be able to correct the work of children from the previous day, all of that goes into teaching,” said Archer-Bradshaw, a former principal at the Erdiston Teachers’ Training College.

“So I want to disabuse the public of any notion that teaching is a nine to two or a nine to three job. It is not. And when those teachers get into the classroom, they not only have to now facilitate using what they have planned, but they have to be on the spot thinking of ways because they have sometimes 25 to 30 children in front of them. In this case, because of the pandemic, they have 14 or 15 students in a classroom, but they have to be able to cater to all of those children. So we must give teachers the credit that they deserve,” she added.

Since April 2020 teachers were forced to adapt to a new environment where they were expected to cover syllabi online over shortened class periods, including preparation for major exams.

In February this year when they returned to physical classrooms, the country’s two main teachers’ unions expressed concern that the COVID-19 measures implemented were inadequate.

Their statements drew criticism from some, including a well-known morning radio personality who urged educators to either “row or get off the boat”.

“You are getting no sympathy from me because I have seen you teachers during school hours doing all brands of things for your own personal comfort to go home and cry mental health,” said Gaynelle Marshall.

“Not hearing it, not having it, dismissed,” she added.

However, Dr Archer-Bradshaw insisted that over the course of the pandemic, teachers had been sacrificing their personal time for the benefit of students.

“Teachers have performed commendably over the two years of the pandemic. They have been nimble in making that shift from face-to-face to online,” said the Chief Education Officer.

“Many of them have pursued training at the Erdiston Teachers’ Training College to ensure that the quality of the education that our children receive is maintained. I cannot, in good conscience, condone any comments that condemn the teachers of Barbados.

“The principals and the teachers are working along with the students at the secondary level – those who are doing the CSEC, those who are doing CAPE, those who are doing the CVQs and the other examinations.

“I must commend the teachers for the work that they are doing with our children. Some of the teachers stay beyond the 2 o’clock time to help our children reach the goals that they had set out for them and that the students had set out for themselves. So I must commend them for that,” she added. (KS)