Teachers have urged the Mia Mottley administration to use next week’s national budget to boost funding for schools, improve classroom resources, strengthen security, and expand access to guidance counsellors across the education system.
Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) President Rudy Lovell said an overall increase in spending on education would be welcome.
He said: “We would encourage the provision of resources, teacher resources, classroom resources. We know that many teachers take their money to spend on classroom resources, charts, etc. If there could be an allocation of funds for teachers to purchase resources, that would be helpful.”
Lovell also called for upgrades to school plants across the island.
“Our school plants are aged. Many of our schools have been constructed over 40 years ago, so the provision of funding to upgrade the school plants is welcome, and we are sure that that will be in the Budget.”
With school security concerns on the rise, Lovell said he hopes to see improvements in both infrastructure and personnel.
“We are grateful to the Ministry of Education for allocating security guards to all schools… all schools don’t have guard huts, and there need to be repairs to the guard huts; they are in a deplorable condition.”
“And the perimeter fencing at schools where there’s a need for the fences to be replaced will be welcome also.”
Acknowledging the presence of guidance counsellors at secondary schools, Lovell said he hopes the same support can be extended to primary schools.
“The provision of guidance counsellors in the primary school will be helpful, but we know it may be difficult because there are 60-odd primary schools and several nursery schools. But any guidance counsellors that can be provided in the primary school system will be appreciated.” (LG)
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