Gov’t warned against undermining education system

Opposition Leader Ralph Thorne on Tuesday sent a stern warning to the Mia Mottley administration not to touch the education system unless the proposed reforms are progressive.

He predicted that having lived through “class” in Barbados, voices will reverberate against any attempts to tamper with the system.

“We mean it when we say it, ‘do not touch education unless those reforms are curricular’,” he said.

Government has been promoting education reform in recent years and late last year, completed a series of town hall-style meetings to invite public input in the consultation on the proposed changes which include sweeping changes to the school system and the curriculum.

Thorne’s warning came early in his reply to the prime minister’s Budget delivered on Monday evening.

“I don’t know if it is embarrassment, but government intends to withdraw from the drastic reforms that it had threatened the freedom-loving people of this country, to dismantle the one institution that emancipated the lives of the oppressed, the dispossessed and the disadvantaged, especially in the 1960s and 1970s.

“If an institution has elevated large segments of this population, why do you want to dismantle it? Why do you want to interfere with it particularly when those proposed reforms were implemented in other countries and those other countries knew and accepted the folly of the reforms.”

A fired-up opposition leader told the House of Assembly that there is a large percentage of the population which understands what education has done for this country and would not stand by to watch it destroyed. He said large settlements in Barbados have benefited from the education system.

“Many of us did not read about race and class in any textbook. It was not an academic exercise. We lived it,” he said. (SP)