Carla Phillips (centre) Customer Service Representative with the Transport Board, sharing information about the bus service with Beverley Payne and and her son, Devon Inniss while Public Relations Officer of the Barbados National Parent-Teacher Association (BNPTA) Donna Sealy (second from right) and President of the Barbados Union of Teachers, Pedro Shepherd, looks on.
BUT’s turn to tour schools next week
Sun, 09/04/2016 - 12:08am
By:
Marsha Gittens
The Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) will be conducting a tour next week of some of the schools that have undergone renovations during the summer vacation.
BUT President Pedro Shepherd disclosed this yesterday as he spoke to the press on the sidelines of a joint ‘Get on Board!’ initiative staged by Barbados National Parent-Teacher Association (BNPTA) and members of the Transport Board’s marketing team. It was aimed at raising the public’s awareness of the BNPTA and its role as well as educating them about the routes of the school bus service.
“I believe that by September 12th all the work should be done. All the cleaning should be done and all the schools should be ready, but as I said, we are going to have our own tour sometime next week to have our own inspections, sort of, as to whether the schools are indeed ready.”
Shepherd shared that the BUT visited the Westbury Primary School, one of the schools that had some major repairs, on Friday on invitation from the principal and the shop steward. He stated that the “school is not going to be ready for the planning week so the principal has sought permission and gotten permission from the Ministry to have planning week at the Ministry of Education next week.”
Meanwhile, stating why the union was not involved in the recent day-long tour conducted by the Minister of Education, Science and Technology to eight public schools which have undergone renovations, he said the BUT was not invited.
“Sometime, maybe four years ago or so, we were invited every year to attend the bus tour which is done by the Ministry of Education as they go around to schools that are under the summer programme for renovations and so on, but within the last four years, we have not been invited to join the ministry on such tours so we have not gone to the schools. We are planning however as a union our own visits sometime next week during the planning week where we are going to be going to a few of the schools.”(MG)