The President of Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) Sean Spencer shared his concerns about teachers’ safety at school and the challenges they faced to find solutions at ‘The Time is Now: The Violence Must Stop’ meeting at the Samuel Jackman Prescod Institute of Technology yesterday.
Teachers urged to speak out
Teachers are being asked to speak out and provide solutions to the concerns about safety and the violence being seen in their school environment.
President of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT), Sean Spencer made this call during “The Time is Now: The Violence Must Stop” meeting at the Samuel Jackman Prescod Institute of Technology yesterday.
A fervent Spencer reminded the audience of educators that the meeting was about everyone, their children’s future, their standard of living, their quality of life being threatened as a consequence of the recent events. He added that there are also episodes that they do not hear about but the BUT president emphasised that despite the incidents passing over time, it was their problem.
“When we are thinking of solutions, we have to be active in our job as we discharge our duties and responsibilities!” stressed Spencer.
During his remarks, Spencer highlighted that a letter from BUT was sent to the Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training about Ellerton Primary School in February. He indicated that it was stated that most teachers are female and they needed to be protected. Spencer said that he was bluntly told that there will be no placement of security guards in the schools. The BUT President asked about the value of teachers.
“How do you count a life? How do value your employees that is now us? How do we value ourselves? Turning the Ministry as we know, we will probably get a response some time. But the response we need, we will have to formulate ourselves and put it to them in writing and whatever forms it needs to be,” said Spencer.
Acknowledging that several of the teachers in attendance are qualified in the fields of psychology, social work, guidance, Spencer questioned why these teachers are not asked what is required to (solve the problems in schools).
“These are skills and competencies we have spent hours acquiring to improve ourselves not just to climb the ladder to be able to empower ourselves and better our students and this nation,” said Spencer.
In addition to the attendance of some of the BUT executive committee, there was representation from St. Leonard’s Boys’ Secondary School and Frederick Smith Secondary School at the meeting.