create legislation

Teachers of the Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union (BSTU) called for the Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training to create and establish legislation that holds parents accountable and responsible for the actions of their underage children.

Speaking during the near six-hour meeting which took place yesterday afternoon, President of the BSTU, Mary-Ann Redman assured teachers who would have called for the Ministry to create this legislation that this was one of the 22 recommendations she intends to hand deliver to the Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training with swiftness.

During yesterday’s meeting there was a passionate outcry from a plethora of teachers, calling for the Government to listen to these recommendations and the outcry of teachers as they are the ones that spend each day, many hours per day, with these students.

One teacher believes that protocol should be established which informs teachers of whether or not they have students in their class who are “at risk”.
“They must know because if we don’t know then we can’t protect others or ourselves,” she said.

She stated, to which many others in the room approved, that the country needed to put funding behind assigning more than two psychiatrists per school, as it was impossible to have two per school to cater to the thousands of children.

Redman went on to note that the mental health aspect of violence against teachers also needs to be highlighted, as in many cases, the causes of violence produce triggers of stress, fear and anxiety in teachers as they worry about the safety of the students under their care.

“Teachers suffer frustration and demotivation, depression and anger when they feel they cannot get their long-standing issues addressed by the Ministry of Education,” she said.

“As professionals we need to again be able to have influence to initiate and lead change and improvement in our school systems, to be able to set agendas and both create and validate solutions to the problems that we face in the front line as educators and we hope that today signals the start of that kind of approach to effectively deal with what the Minister previously actively described as a crisis in education.

“This cannot and will not be a talk shop. We plan to take a document to the Ministry; we want a meeting, we are not just going to give a letter, we have to sit and together enforce strategies that will work to the benefit of all who teach, work and learn in schools.”