#BTEditorial – Will Bajans be satisfied to just move on?

Today, the wrath of citizens in and outside Barbados has been consistent. They are not satisfied with the apologies and explanations that have been offered. They want action, which they believe is commensurate with the harm and embarrassment that the matter has caused to students and parents, as well as the island’s image.

Barbadians believe that innocent 11 and 12-year-old school children were exploited by representatives of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) who said they “inadvertently” retained questions in the “pretest” which the Ministry of Education said it requested be removed. The Ministry’s high command, for their part, admitted that no one checked to confirm the questions were removed, taking the word of the IDB that their request had been actioned.

Parents are still upset that not only was information collected on the youngsters but also on them, all this with no permission.

It has become one hot and messy saga, with so many questions still unanswered. Among them, was the role of principals and teachers at the schools, whom many accused of abdicating their responsibility to the children by allowing people they did not know to enter classrooms and conduct  a “test” in which teachers were required to leave during the process.

After days of being condemned for her silence, Minister of Education, Technological and Vocational Training Kay McConney finally addressed the issue over the weekend, but the consensus is McConney’s style and body language did little to help her cause or endear her to the public.

The Prime Minister’s intervention on the matter, in which she did not offer unequivocal support for the Ministry of Education’s handling of the issue, commented “…we are not, therefore, allowing persons to just feel that this is open season for our children.”

The calls are growing for the Prime Minister, as the head of Cabinet and the person who appoints ministers and has demonstrated during her tenure that she is capable of also removing ministers from their posts, to take action on this occasion.

The disclosure by Chief Education Officer Dr Ramona Archer-Bradshaw on Sunday during a radio call-in programme that the contentious test with the inappropriate survey questions on matters such as sexuality, suicide, and gender were administered to children of other schools in June was no doubt alarming

“As the information came to us with regard to the five schools affected this academic year and we began our investigation, it was found that the test given in June was of a similar nature to the one given in September. What occurred in June and what occurred in September was all part of the same project. As I became aware of it last week is when we began to take action and delved deeper into it,” Archer-Bradshaw revealed in response to a question from a caller.

Whether the administration is hoping the controversy will abate shortly like others in the past or the public will become distracted by some other issue is anyone’s guess.

What the dispute has demonstrated is a new level of citizen engagement and action like we have not witnessed in recent times. It may also signal an inflection point in which people’s

attitudes to governance in Barbados have moved dramatically.