It seemed like a case of déjà vu last week when we reported that three schools were not opening at the start of the Michaelmas academic term.
We have grown more than accustomed to successive Ministers of Education and Education Chiefs lamenting at the start of the new school year about unfinished repairs being carried out on schools.
We have become more than weary in hearing over and over again that after a lengthy vacation, and in this case a COVID-19 period of physical school downtime, that hundreds of students must wait another week or weeks to be housed in a school.
We are simply tired that it would appear that the upkeep of our country’s educational institutions often appears to be an afterthought.
It was Sunday, September 18th that Minister of Education Kay McConney announced that due to incomplete repairs, the resumption of classes at Wilkie Cumberbatch Primary School and the Eden Lodge Nursery School would be delayed by a week, while the Gordon Walters Primary School would have opened later this week.
The reopening of Gordon Walters Primary School, McConney reported, was delayed to ensure that the smell of paint dissipates and to allow for final touches before students return. The Minister also explained that there was ongoing work on the windows at Wilkie Cumberbatch Primary School which underwent a complete overhaul. She added also that the 35 children from the Eden Lodge Nursery school would be accommodated at the nearby Seventh Day Adventist Church.
The Minister told the media during a tour of schools: “Sometimes when we start a job, we discover that there is more damage than we anticipated, that was the case with the windows. When we started to replace, we realised that the entire structural system of this block had to be redone, both the roof and the flooring had to be redone; again, those were unexpected setbacks at the time. We thought we could do smaller repairs.”
But the delays, especially the work that was ongoing at Wilkie Cumberbatch, did not go down well with the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT).
The BUT head Rudy Lovell complained that the Ministry of Education approached school repairs the same way every year but expected to get a different result.
So concerned was Lovell about what he referred to as a recurring situation, that he suggested that perhaps the time had come for the Educational Technical Management Unit (ETMU) under which school repairs fall, to become a separate unit from the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MEVT) and be given independent funding.
He pointed out that during the September 12-16 planning week, teachers had to be at school plants while construction and industrial cleaning were ongoing – a practice which Lovell said the union was opposed to as it could affect the safety and health of teachers.
“Today, the 19th of September, media reports have informed of at least three schools not opening due to incomplete renovations, while others have been impacted by last-minute industrial cleaning which, in some cases, were completed late last night,” Lovell said.
“This is so despite numerous assurances from the Ministry of Education that the renovations and industrial cleaning would have been completed on time to facilitate the proper start of the 2022-2023 academic school year.”
During the week at a tour of Wilkie Cumberbatch the BUT president deemed the situation there an “injustice” that would not be tolerated by the union.
“Essentially, we are concerned that the staff has been asked to turn up to work while construction work is still ongoing. We believe that is against the natural justice of health and safety,” he said.
We feel the BUT president’s frustration. We are sure that his frustration for the teachers was akin to that of ancillary staff, parents and students as well. People simple want to get on with the business of education.
What the Ministers, Education Chiefs and the Ministry must understand is that when they do not fulfil their mandate of maintaining the schools and doors remain closed, they are squarely at fault.
Sadly, for the ministry, when they drop the ball the situation is sometimes compounded by circumstances beyond their control. Take for instance the environmental saga Lawrence T Gay Memorial School which to this day investigations have proven to be “inconclusive” as reported by the Minister last week.
A day ago, Monday, Grantley Adams Memorial was closed due to “environmental issues”, at the same time St Giles Primary had to be closed due to a criminal matter as someone broke into the school. It is occurrences such as these, that add insult to injury. We start at a deficit then something happens and the number of schools closed start to increase. Then we have hundreds of students out to sea.
We have lost precious, precious, school time when we were battling the COVID-19 pandemic at its height. We do not need a thesis or study group to tell us that our student population at all levels, is behind. We are all acutely aware that this is time lost that can never be recovered. However, the onus is now on us, and especially the Ministry of Education, to ensure that what time we now have is used as effectively as possible. There really is no time or place for closed schools in a 2022 post-pandemic Barbados.
