#BTEditorial – Time to face challenges affecting schools head-on

There are chronic problems that pose grave threats to our public education system; and they need to be addressed post-haste.

Almost every week, there is an issue or issues at some school plant across the island that forces closure. These closures have an impact on the students, some of who are already facing challenges due to the lack of teaching during the height of the COVID pandemic.

How can we expect these students to settle down and get on with the job if classes continue to be interrupted? How can the teaching staff get a rhythm going if they either do not feel safe at work or are falling ill due to environmental issues? How are parents to cope when they receive calls, while on the job, that they must come and collect their charges or make arrangements to have them collected? Serious decisions have to be made and action must be taken in order to ensure that these disruptions are the exceptions and not the rule.

Over the past week alone hundreds of students have lost precious teaching time.

Last week classes at the Frederick Smith Secondary School were disrupted. The majority of teachers stayed away from the Trents, St James educational institution in an apparent sickout. The action forced the school closure.

One of the “burning issues” was something as simple as a lack of school supplies which should not pose such a huge challenge in 2023.

The Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) reported that lack of supplies for teachers to do their jobs as well as concerns about the high level of deviant behaviour among students.

Following the action, an emergency meeting was called between officials of the union and the Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training.

BUT president Rudy Lovell said: “Any high level of deviance at an educational institution is a concern for the union and that is one of the issues put to the Ministry of Education regarding the Frederick Smith Secondary School. The Ministry has promised to review methods that would lead to a reduction of deviance amongst the student population.”

He added: “They have started to do an intervention at the junior level with first, second and third formers at the school with a view of correcting some of the indiscipline among that cohort of students.”

One of the other issues of concern raised by the union was the lack of critical materials, including those necessary to complete School Based Assessments, printing paper and ink, and sporting apparatus, hindering teachers’ ability to work.

On Monday we reported that at least three public schools are being impacted by environmental issues with several teachers reporting ill at one institution.

More than ten teachers at St Stephen’s Nursery School in Black Rock, St Michael left the school premises after midday complaining that they were no longer able to tolerate a pungent smell near the compound.

This time BUT’s second vice president André Holder was on location.

“The Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) would have visited the school around lunchtime and there was a very, very strong and unbearable odour on the school compound. It smelt like a combination of chicken faeces and human faeces and it was very unbearable.”

He continued: “We visited the school because some of the teachers reached out to us. The matter was reported to the Ministry of Education and they would have reported sick and some of them left as they felt ill. Some members of staff had vomited and also some children. This issue was ongoing for a little while but today it was at its highest level and it was definitely unbearable.”

Over at All Saints Primary School in Pleasant Hall, St Peter teachers, as well as parents of students, complained about cowitch.

Parents said they were concerned about the well-being of their wards. Teachers also had some concerns.

At Lester Vaughan Secondary School in Cane Garden, St Thomas teachers and parents complained about a variety of environmental issues.

Parents complained that their children were experiencing dizziness and respiratory problems, especially those who had classes in the science lab.

“My son is in fifth form and he comes home and complains that he feels dizzy at school, has a burning sensation in his throat and shortness of breath. I told him to try to avoid B6 Block and the hall (the areas where her son complained of feeling ill) but he cannot because he has classes in that block and assembly is in the hall,” said a mother of three.

We can ill afford to allow our educational system to be plagued by these menacing issues. The Ministry of Education whose responsibility is both the safety and upkeep of the physical school plant may need to set up a subcommittee that handles matters such as these – exclusively.

The time has come for a more proactive and less reactive approach to these things that pose a clear and present danger to our decades-long mooted excellent educational system.