Two schools for at-risk students will soon be opened in Barbados.
Minister of Education and Human Resource Development Ronald Jones announced this yesterday while giving the feature address at the speech day of Ellerslie Secondary Secondary School.
One of the schools will be residential and both will be for students currently being sent to the Edna Nicholls Centre.
Jones did not reveal where the schools would be located or when construction would start, but said they would be here “sooner rather than later”.
“I’ve seen the plans, I know what it will cost, and once all of that is done it will be constructed,” he said.
“We will take from your schools those students who need that help. And it’s not for any ten days at Edna Nicholls Centre either [but] when you’ve demonstrated that you’ve changed . . . You are going to have to do so many life-enriching activities,” he told students.
Jones said it was better to deal with a child’s issues early rather than wait until the child killed someone and was sentenced to HMP Dodds.
“When they are so much on the periphery, you say ‘come, your family is not taking care of you, your society, your community is not taking care of you, so the state will take care of you in a residential facility,’” Jones said to loud applause from the audience.
The minister also encouraged students to be careful how they used technology and the various social media especially with pictures of various activities.“What are you doing to your school?
What are you doing to your school tie? What are you doing to your epaulettes? . . . Where is your pride in your school?” he asked.
Please see also Centre Pages in Thursday’s DAILY NATION.
