Education officials have once again
raised the ire of the country’s two teachers unions, amid allegations that COVID-19 protocols established before the resumption of school are not being implemented across the board.
The concerns are expected to dominate the unions’ talks with senior civil servants on Wednesday as the country grapples with the second case of the deadly virus at a secondary school within the first seven days of the new term.
On Monday morning, students of the Ellerslie Secondary School were turned away from classes because of what was later identified as a positive case within the student population. Late last week, a student of the Princess Margaret Secondary School tested positive and another at St George Primary School was said to have been exposed to the virus.
Nevertheless, the presidents of the Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union (BSTU) and Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) have urged more stringent measures in the midst of deadlier variants of the virus and community spread since early January.
On the most recent case, the BSTU’s Mary Redman said: “Our concerns revolve around the question of whether this infection was part of a family cluster or whether the student was a single infection and was not a case resulting from a known contact. The implications of the latter especially are obvious in the school setting.
“We also have concerns as to whether siblings exist in that household and are in attendance at other schools.”
More worrisome, Redman said, are continuous complaints of overcrowded classrooms, poor ventilation, poor signage and non-functioning sick-bays in the public secondary schools. Members are also demanding to know why certain protocols like six feet distancing were applied across the public service, but not within the schools.
The BSTU leader said: “These circumstances are untenable in a situation where we know that we have a different variant, one that is more virulent, one that has proven to be more deadly and one to which young people are more susceptible and that point was underscored up to [yesterday] with the comments of Dr Corey Forde, all of this is taking place within a context of community spread.
“We cannot fathom the reason for or the reasonableness of a three-foot [separation] stipulation given our present reality and as a result of that three-foot stipulation overcrowding of up to 30 children in classrooms.
“Since the 24th of March as well, we asked that there be random testing of teachers and students even before the resumption of face-to-face instruction at schools and for it to continue after. This has not happened. We have also asked for monitors at the secondary level too so that we can ensure that the older children adhere to the protocols since many are not wearing masks, or they are not wearing them properly, or they are not social distancing.”
The BUT’s concerns were almost identical. But president Pedro Shepherd predicted that more school closures are to be expected because of the ministry’s failure to heed the advice to postpone face-to-face classes until September.
He said: “I think teachers have concerns with the process because teachers are in schools where there are no sanitising solutions, where alcohol is not present, where Clorox wipes and Lysol wipes are non-existent or significantly reduced.
“I believe PPE at some of our secondary schools and so on are yet to be supplied. So teachers are concerned because of a lack of the materials necessary to manage the process and they will continue to be until the Ministry of Education provides them with the PPEs and the necessary sanitising materials and equipment and so on.
“The unions were asking for a September date and we continue to maintain that September was indeed the better time to restart schools because we were of the view that we needed to manage the community spread, we needed to manage the clusters, we needed to ensure that persons, teachers and adults get both jabs so that they have some level of immunity because we were told upfront that the first jab really doesn’t give you any immunity.”
In addition to general concerns about assessing academic progress in the current environment, Shepherd is becoming increasingly worried about continued attempts to “force” the sitting of Common Entrance and CXC exams.
Said Shepherd: “I think that we will come to some realisation at some point that there was really no need for us to be looking at Common Entrance or CXC in this environment and that the year really should have been considered a lost year where students are just taught certain aspects of the syllabus so as to keep them active and keep the brains flowing, but really and truly call this a lost year and have everybody repeating the year and then we could talk about mastery and so on.
“But as it is now, we are really going to produce students who are way below mark.”
As the unionised teachers continue to carry out the Government’s directive, they are also asking for more school monitors to be hired particularly in secondary schools.
The issues are all expected to be raised on Wednesday during a meeting with senior civil servants of the health and education ministries.
(kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb)
