Minister of Education, Technological and Vocational Training, Santia Bradshaw (right), makes a point while President of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT), Pedro Shepherd and other officials listen, after a tour of the Lawrence T. Gay Memorial Primary School yesterday.
THE Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) is adamant the Lawrence T. Gay Memorial Primary School remains closed until January.
President Pedro Shepherd made this clear while on a tour of the Spooners Hill educational establishment yesterday afternoon.
“To have a school where there have been serious environmental challenges over the last five to six years, you have brought in all of the necessary persons – environmentalists, the Ministries of Labour and Health; and some work has been done to the plant and as we speak work is still ongoing and staff is still pointing out to the Minister a number of issues at the school in terms of leaking classrooms, termite-infested doors and furniture, and we heard about a nutrition building which has been condemned and is no longer in use.
“My position is that if the school is not ready today when we are having the walk-through, two days away from the date the Minister has suggested school would be back face-to-face, the simple decision can be made here to close the school for the next eight days to allow work that was done on the grease traps to be cured, to allow for the removal of the furniture and doors that is termite infested and all the other things that have to be done,” he said.
Insisting industrial cleaning was necessary, Shepherd stated it made little sense for the students and staff to return on December 1.
“This is an opportunity for the Ministry to begin whatever work they have to do early … so that when school reopens in January, there will be no issues in terms of scent of paints or termite treatment and the school would look better than it looks today,” he said.
Shepherd said the BUT will return to the school on Tuesday “to see whether it was in a state for the teachers and students to function”.
“If it is not, then we will do what we have been doing for the last two weeks and give notice of school closure at eight and nine at night to confuse parents to make the necessary arrangements to have their children looked after,” he stated.
He made the comments to the media moments before Education Minister Santia Bradshaw announced that the establishment will be closed on Friday for the rest of the Michaelmas term. (JMB)