Emergency Corrective Work at Wesley Hall School Begins Amid Teacher and Union Concerns

Emergency corrective work is set to begin Friday at the Wesley Hall School, even as unionised teachers and the Barbados Union of Teachers remain dissatisfied with the pace of progress on the promised repairs.

When a Barbados TODAY team visited the school on Wednesday, following a meeting involving Deputy Chief Education Officer with responsibility for schools, Glyne Price and other Ministry of Education officials, union representatives, and teachers, the head of the BUT’s occupational safety and health committee, Julian Pierre, told reporters that the school has been plagued with challenges for many years. He said shoddy craftsmanship has mostly failed to fix some of the issues.

“Wesley Hall is a school that was promised extensive work since May 18, 2019, and little has been done since then,” Pierre said. “We always speak about bad workmanship, and in a case where the Ministry of Education subcontracts persons to do work on behalf of them in the schools and the work is shoddy work, it has to be done over, and you are reemploying the same persons to do over their bad work, then nothing is really achieved.

“The teachers are frustrated, and we’ve actually spoken to some parents as well because their children come in and they complain about these things that are going on at school. The issues have to be addressed at Wesley Hall, and we would like them to be addressed in short order because there has been disruption, and we cannot say there won’t be further disruptions within the school.”

Though the issues at the school cover a variety of areas, rat infestation and a lack of security are at the top of the list for teachers, according to Pierre.

“We’ve had issues here [with] rodents,” he told reporters. “The most immediate case is mice in the nutrition room running around…. We’ve had issues of security, which is a big problem here, because both schools – the infants school and the junior school – share one security guard. So, in essence, if one person comes to the guard to be escorted to either school property, then no one is by the gate and others can come in at any time.

“Teachers have had to fear for possibly their lives if there is a situation where they have parents who have an issue and they come on the compound, they make threats to either teachers or other students. If the guard is not there and persons just appear on the compound, there is no one to tell you who the person is and who they have come to.”

He further explained that the school’s ageing buildings were also a worry.

“This building which is just behind us here, there are parts of the building upstairs where the flooring is actually soft. I’ve heard teachers speaking about when children walk upstairs, the dust from the roof falls downstairs, even during lunchtime when children are eating. Obviously it falls into their food and that is also a problem.”

The school’s hall, which has badly needed flooring repaired, will likely see the start of remedial work on Friday, with other projects on the compound, including fixing a roof and treating mould on one of the block’s buildings, also scheduled to take place, with follow-up work to be done.

Despite the BUT’s reservations, the ministry in a statement issued late Wednesday deemed the meeting “a success”.

The ministry had called for the meeting to allow the teaching staff to communicate the challenges they have been facing at the school for several years.

“Of particular concern was the state of the flooring in the main hall, and part of the roof in the main building. The Education Technical Management Unit (ETMU) conducted a walk-through of the school plant . . . and echoed similar observations, and made recommendations for starting the repair process. Ministry officials present at today’s meeting assured the staff that said work would be starting this Friday on the aforementioned areas.

“The ministry also gave the assurance that Wesley School was already one of the schools on the list for summer work and other repairs, as it was recognised that the school is in need of some urgent attention,” it said.

It added that the ETMU is formulating a comprehensive schedule, which includes a more detailed walk-through by its members, and visits from senior ministry officials for

further communication with the school’s leadership and teaching staff.

“Finding satisfaction with initiatives presented, teachers gave assurance that they will return to regular classes, as the ministry moves swiftly to bring about the necessary changes,” it added, indicating that regular hours for classes resume from Thursday. (SB)