MINISTER OF EDUCATION Ronald Jones came under heavy criticism at the hands of educator Sandie Field-Kellman during the 10th People’s Assembly hosted by the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) yesterday.
In a blistering attack, Field-Kellman told her audience at Graydon Sealy Secondary School that she would do a better job than him as minister.
“We have a Minister of Education – Ronald Jones – who I will soon ask to vacate his position . . . as our education system is failing the children today.
“He can give me the job from only 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. a day and when he comes back, he would see my plan at work. He needs to stick to what he is good at, not at leading our children,” she said.
Field-Kellman outlined part of a five-point plan she said she planned to take to Jones at a later date. It included: proper training of teachers – some of whom she said were “school dropouts” who could not even spell Montessori; reinforce soft skills from nursery level; reduce classroom sizes; abolish the Barbados Secondary Schools Entrance Examination (Common Entrance) – as she said it was impossible to assess a child in one day after seven to eight years of work – and bridging arts and education.
Another peeve Field-Kellman pointed to was what she said was the number of illegal pre-schools in Barbados.
“We have a system where you just need children and a building. There are a lot of people running illegal schools and I can’t compete when I need all these [relevant] documents. I won’t be standing for it in 2014; we need a policy governing how these schools should be run.”
She also lambasted the free Government summer camps, which she said was originally something she was approached about to formulate but from which she was thereafter dissociated. However, she said that without her expertise the camps ended up being shambles, with under-qualified administrators. She said they should charge a small fee for the camps and adopt a bursary system for those who could not afford it.
In addition to calling for Jones to resign, Field-Kellman said Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler and Central Bank Governor Dr DeLisle Worrell should follow suit as early as “tomorrow”.
“We need to protest to get these . . . people out of position. It’s not about party all the time. My passion is children and when we, the BLP, take over, we will have a new vision for our children,” she said. (CA)