A former head of the Government Industrial School (GIS) is suggesting that nurse stations be placed at the island’s 21 public secondary schools.
Erwin Leacock made the call on Wednesday night while contributing to the first public consultation on education transformation at the Alexandra Secondary School in St Peter.
“In reimagining education, we have 21 secondary schools, on average about 800 children per school. Are there no plans for a nursing station at each school? I have had children in custody who have come from schools…and I had one boy who had to take two insulin injections on a daily basis. And I asked a simple question: ‘Where do you go?’ He goes into the toilet to inject himself,” Leacock recalled.
In seeking to strengthen his case for these stations, the retired principal of the reform school for juveniles made reference to the prevalence of asthmatics in schools.
“Chronic asthmatics, you are talking about a life and death situation. There are no nebulisers in schools, nobody trained to use them,” he pointed out
He also anchored his appeal in the plight of girls who have special needs to be taken care of in school.
“You must appreciate that you have girls …some of them will most likely experience their first menstrual period at school. What happens to them? Where is the safe space that they can go to deal with that? So, when we talk about reimagining education, we have to look at the traditional educational aspect of it and we have to look at support services. That is something I would like to see considered because it’s not a luxury, it is an absolute necessity,” Leacock contended.
Meanwhile, he suggested that there be inter-agency collaboration within government in seeking to introduce education reform proposals.
“Everything that is said here has to reverberate throughout and has to be part of the government’s policy. It is not what you say, it is what you do,” he declared. (EJ)
