Teachers who have applied for transfers for the 2023-2024 school year are still awaiting word from the Ministry of Education regarding whether their requests have been approved, less than two weeks before they are to report for duty.
President of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) Rudy Lovell told Barbados TODAY the late notice was unacceptable as teachers needed to know well in advance to allow for relevant planning.
“One of the challenges that we are having and we continue to have is the fact that some teachers get notification of transfers late, and we suspect that will happen again this year. Some teachers have applied for transfers and have not been given any form of notification, to date, as to which school they will be going to,” he lamented.
“We complained about this last year, and we are going to complain about it again because the ministry needs to inform teachers in a timely manner where they will be working for the academic school year so that they can get their houses in order, in terms of their families.”
Lovell added: “We know that the teachers are at the mercy of the ministry when it comes to transfers because they can be transferred without even putting in a request. But the point is that we want if the transfers are being done, that they be done in a time that would allow teachers to plan adequately. Teachers have children, some family members share cars, and they have to adjust the routine to suit where they are being transferred to. Teachers need to know, in advance, what schools they are being transferred to.”
The BUT head said this was particularly a concern for primary school teachers.
Stressing that the wait was frustrating teachers, Lovell explained that, in some instances, the ministry waited days before, or the morning of the first day of the school year, to inform teachers what school they have been transferred to.
Lovell said this practice needs to stop, and he called on the ministry to play its role in ensuring that stakeholders take the teaching profession seriously.
“The ministry must do its part to try to uplift the profession by ensuring that whatever they do is in the best interest of the teaching and learning process. I don’t know, I am not sure, only they can say, but whatever process that they have that is hindering them from being effective needs to change.
“Regardless of how many teachers apply for transfer, the notification should be done early. And I don’t think that this is a major request we are making. All we want is for teachers to know in advance if their transfer has been granted and where they should report to work at the beginning of the new school year,” Lovell said.
Barbados TODAY’s efforts to contact Chief Education Officer Dr Ramona Archer-Bradshaw on the matter have been unsuccessful.
