Difficult decisions to be made

Following a meeting held with the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, and the staff members of the Grantley Adams Memorial School, Parliamentary Secretary in that Ministry, Senator Harcourt Husbands believes that difficult decisions must be made.

His comments came as he addressed the media yesterday evening following the conclusion of the meeting, which was held on the grounds of the institution.

“Coming out of this we are going to have to make some more difficult decisions to protect the students who come here every day and the teaching and non-teaching staff. Difficult, hard decisions we are going to have to take and when we take them, I am not interested in anything from any section of the public,” he said.

“We have one priority, to protect the people who come here every day and whatever it takes to protect them, we will have to do.”

He expressed that they were not able to cover everything with the lengthy meeting that they had just attended and revealed that they were going to meet again today to further discuss the issues at hand.

He added that the counselling for teachers was going to continue and went on to commend the teachers that went above and beyond the call of duty to intervene in what he described as an “extremely dangerous situation”.

“The Ministry of Education and the people of Barbados owes them a debt of gratitude and our presence here today was a form of support for the teachers and non-teaching staff,” he said.

On the topic at hand, Husbands noted that he has some ideas in his head on how to address the situation at hand, which he planned to relay to the Minister.

“There are immediate things that must be done as of Monday next week and then there are medium-termed things that could be done in two weeks, such as doing things to the compound and making sure that the teachers, students and non-teaching staff, received the counselling they needed.”

Husbands was of the belief that the persons who were associated with the event that took place at the school should not be allowed to come back onto the compound and while he expressed that he would not “prejudge the decisions that the Minister of Education is going to take” he stressed that his advice to him would be concise.