Barbados Union of Teachers Urges Ministry of Education to Enhance School Security Staffing

The Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) is urging the Ministry of Education to place greater emphasis on increasing security personnel in schools, warning that without sufficient manpower, newly introduced safety measures are ineffective.

The call on Tuesday came a day after the ministry’s announcement of enhanced security protocols for the start of the new academic year.

BUT president Rudy Lovell told Barbados TODAY that despite the new standards, including stricter monitoring by security officers and a requirement for visitors to present national ID cards before entering school premises, the lack of staff to enforce these measures renders them inadequate.

“The comments are one that we take with a pinch of salt; we still want to ensure that what is said is done,” Lovell said. “It is easy to make these comments but at the end of the day, the comments must be supported by action. Until we see the provision of security in schools, we cannot say that the problem that we are having now with security has been rectified.”

Lovell pointed out the futility of enforcing ID checks without personnel to carry them out.

“It does not make any sense asking persons to show their identification cards at the entry to a school, and there is no one to show the identification cards to. There must be somebody stationed at the gate or by the guard hut to make the process possible,” he added.

Lovell also described Monday’s situation at Eden Lodge Primary School – where classes were cut short when students arrived to find that major maintenance work, including on the septic tank, was still ongoing – as “unfortunate”.

The BUT president, whose union previously expressed concerns about the lack of oversight on contractors tasked with school repairs, said the incident could have been avoided with better monitoring.

“I believe that they gave the green light based on assurances given by contractors, but therein lies the problem. When a contract is given, it should be supported by a Gantt chart which would outline the stages and the completion of work, so that coming onto the end of the summer, you would not be scrambling to know whether or not school will open,” Lovell said, stressing the importance of detailed planning to avoid last-minute issues.

“You would have a detailed history as to when school is going to be open, when the project is going to be finished, etc. At every stage of the project, you would know exactly which date work will be done. That would only be adjusted due to something like rain or a natural disaster,”