President of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT), Pedro Shepherd, speaking with members of the Executive Committee after the mass meeting held at the Wildey Gymnasium, yesterday.
Teachers exiting the four-hour-long Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) meeting yesterday evening.
URGENT REQUEST
Sat, 04/23/2016 - 12:00am
Teachers want to meet with Minister Jones
Members of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) are threatening to stay away from the classroom if Minister of Education, Ronald Jones, fails to meet with them by next Wednesday.
“We will be writing to request a meeting with the Minister… We are at the point where he has to speak to teachers,” BUT President, Pedro Shepherd, told the media after meeting with members at the Wildey Gymnasium yesterday evening.
“The Minister has to speak to teachers directly and not speak to teachers on Facebook or via Government Information Service (GIS). He has to see teachers in person, speak to them, hear their issues and answer their questions. Teachers have so many questions for the Minister. Every single time the Minister of Education speaks in Barbados, in any forum, the Minister castigates and vilify teachers and the time has come for him to meet them face to face.
“We are hoping that meeting takes place by next Wednesday, April 27 and if it does not take place by then, teachers are prepared not to go into the classroom on Friday, April 29. We are prepared to stay home until the Minister meets with us,” he signalled, also revealing that the Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union (BSTU) is aware of their stance.
Shepherd went on to make it clear that yesterday’s meeting, which attracted hundreds of teachers, was not industrial action as so stated by the Ministry of Education in a press release on Wednesday.
“We have no dispute with the Ministry on anything significant enough to cause a dispute at this time, although we still have Alma Parris and Parkinson among other issues
outstanding, which the ministry refuses to give any action on – but we aren’t dealing with those. We are dealing with the violence against teachers in our schools and the constant bashing of teachers by the Minister of Education – someone who was a former president of the BUT, someone who was a teacher and someone who we believe should know better,” he stressed.
“We are not going to continue to push back these actions. We kept pushing back actions on Parkinson, on Alma Parris and this is over five years that Alma Parris continues to suffer. We have lost membership at Alma Parris because members felt that the BUT did nothing, but we have been working night and day on these issues but the Ministry has this notion that you can stall the BUT, you can stall teachers from taking action by saying a report is due, we are investigating the matter and will get back to you at some point.” (TL)