Schools cleared for reopening, new guidelines ‘coming’

As the Ministry of Education Transformation prepares to welcome the Trinity term on Monday, Minister Chad Blackman has announced plans to release a set of protocols to guide the environmental health of school plants. He also issued a cautionary message to businesses operating near school compounds.

In March, six schools were affected by environmental issues that disrupted the teaching and learning process for students and teachers. The situation led to early dismissals at some schools, while others were closed for more than one day. Among those affected were St Bartholomew Primary, St Paul’s Primary, Charles F Broome Memorial Primary, Mount Tabor Primary, Christ Church Girls’ School, and Hilda Skeene Primary.

The Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) has called for a clear national protocol to address environmental health concerns in schools. These guidelines should include cleaning and sanitation requirements, as well as maintenance and inspection schedules, it said.

Blackman told Barbados TODAY on the sidelines of the Barbados National Student Council’s Elections at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre that his ministry has already established a team to develop the protocols:

“We would have set up a team looking at the protocols that will guide a number of different things, and shortly we will be announcing to the country what those protocols are.”

He also used the opportunity to appeal to businesses and property owners operating near schools to ensure their surroundings are properly maintained:

“I want to use this opportunity, however, to say to entities or businesses or owners of properties around our schools. A lot of them sometimes may have a business that sells food, or you may have a shop that I don’t know, may have vehicles or whatever on the outside of the schools and oftentimes they’re not necessarily kept in a way that would be fit for purpose for what we’re trying to achieve in school in terms of cleanliness, and the truth is if a place is not clean it becomes exposed to all sorts of things including, you know, rodents, etc. which then run into the school.”

Cleaning efforts within schools have been intensified and will continue to be strengthened, Blackman said, while also appealing for greater responsibility from external interest groups:

“Our schools have been kept clean. We’ve intensified our cleaning efforts and we’re ramping up even further, but we also want to use this and, as Minister of Education, really plead with our stakeholders outside of the school to keep their facilities clean because it impacts our schools, it impacts learning, it impacts teaching.”

He gave an assurance that schools affected in the previous term have been properly sanitised and are ready for reopening:

“Those schools have been cleaned, and I’m happy to report that we are satisfied that our teachers and our students continue to be in facilities that are fit for purpose and that they are comfortable in, but as I said what concerned the ministry is that we can’t control what happens on the outside, but sadly it has impacted what happens within our perimeters.”