Retired principal Jeff Broomes is of the view that school children should be banned from mini-vans and ZRs.
Retired principal Jeff Broomes is of the view that school children should be banned from mini-vans and ZRs.
Delivering the Coleridge and Parry School Lecture Series entitled “It Takes an Entire Nation: The Team Approach to Combating Youth Violence in Barbados”, he recommended that this occur between 8.30 a.m. and 3 p.m. and then again after 5 p.m.
“This is even more obvious when it is noted that there is free public transportation for school children.”
Having spent 40 years in Barbados’ teaching service, Broomes pointed out that one of the major contributing factors to the ‘van stand culture’ which encourages deviancy and youth violence is the transfer of students from primary to secondary school.
“Whenever this is raised the discussion dives into one about the Common Entrance Examination, which it is not,” he stressed, explaining that testing is an integral part of education in every country in the world.
“It is how the results of the examination are used that is at the core of the conversation and nothing else.”
Furthermore, the educator is of the view, “It is nonsensical to me that in the 21st century when we have more than enough secondary school space and when there is at least one secondary school in every parish, we are still languishing in this situation.
“We have mass daily student movement and the obvious gathering in the van terminal. In addition to negatively impacting the available time for students to be involved in the after school, character building extra-curricular activities, it not only exposes our children, but it also presents an expensive challenge to our transportation system,” Broomes told the gathering at Alexandra School Hall.
(TL)