Based on the comments that the Hon. Ronald Jones reportedly made to a gathering of young members of the Democratic Labour Party, our Minister of Education seems to believe that a fairly typical or traditional feature of girlhood in Barbados is a phase of development during which Barbadian girls engage in intimate sexual relations with other girls.
I do not subscribe to this point of view, and I would therefore like to publicly refute this, and to challenge the Minister to produce hard evidence to support his position. And if he cannot produce such evidence, he should publicly withdraw this very negative statement that has the potential to cast a pall over our female population.
The Minister also seems to have a very casual attitude towards the idea of Barbadian young people being exposed to so-called "alternative lifestyles" from international sources - life-styles based on male homosexual and female homosexual behaviour - and going through a phase of experimenting with such homosexual lifestyles until, according to him, "they find their basis of being." Surely, the idea of Barbadian boys and girls exploring and experimenting with homosexual lifestyles is not something to be taken lightly, and deserves a serious response from the Ministry of Education!
Barbadian and other Caribbean people do not have to simply sit back and imbibe all the cultural rubbish coming from North America and Europe. We too can produce "alternative life-styles" for our young people - alternative life-styles based on positive, powerful, self-affirming and culturally elevated values and practices that truly belong to us. But this calls for visionary and enlightened national leadership.
Please take note Mr Minister!
Monday, April 26, 2010
THE DODDS SCANDAL - "WE TOLD YOU SO - THREE YEARS AGO!"
The recent revelation by the Governor of the Central Bank that Dodds Prison will cost the people of Barbados a total of $749 million, payable over a 25 year period, further convinces the ‘Peoples Empowerment Party’ that Barbados is well on its way to a status of ‘debt slavery’, compliments of a class of venal, spendthrift and irresponsible politicians who have taken control of both the Democratic Labour Party and the Barbados Labour Party over the past 25 years!
The Dodds issue is nothing short of a scandal, and both the Barbados Labour Party and the Democratic Labour Party must be indicted!
The Barbados Labour Party must be condemned for the shenanigans they perpetrated on the Barbadian people when, in 2005, they initially gave a price of "around $100 million" for Dodds, only to increase it to "$288 million" two years later, and then subjected Barbadians to having to wait a full two years after they left office before details of the full price were publicly revealed for the very first time!
Similarly, the ‘Democratic Labour Party’ must also be condemned for failing in their duties as a Parliamentary Opposition during the period of BLP rule, and for accepting and accommodating the scandalous contractual arrangements entered into for the construction of Dodds. Indeed, it is noteworthy that the new DLP government paid the Dodds debt in 2008 and 2009 without once protesting or even bringing the matter to the attention of the Barbadian people. In fact, Barbadians should take careful note of the fact that it was the Governor of the Central Bank who brought this matter to their attention and shared the relevant information with them - not the Minister of Finance or any other DLP policitican!
The clear conclusion to be drawn from all of this is that the DLP tacitly approved of and went along with what we now choose to call "The Dodds Scandal".
The PEP on the other hand, has been publicly protesting about this matter since 2006! Indeed, in a Press Release dated 4th June 2007, and issued to all the media houses of Barbados, inclusive of the CMC, our party stated at follows:-
"The Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP) is demanding that Prime Minister Owen Arthur explain to the Barbadian people why the cost of the contract to construct the new prison at Dodds in St Philip has escalated from $100 million to $288 million................. The PEP is extremely concerned about this phenomenal increase in the contract price of the new prison........... Indeed, as early as 8th March 2006 our Party signalled our concerns about the prison contract to Attorney General Dale Marshall, when we wrote to him requesting that we be given copies of the construction plans for the new prison and be permitted to visit the construction site at Dodds, St Philip..........................
The Pep demands to know why a foreign firm was selected at a price of $228 million over a local consortium of firms, whose price was much lower at $120 million.............. The PEP denounces the practice that has been routinely engaged in by both the Barbados Labour Party and the Democratic Labour Party of awarding contracts at a particular figure, and then agreeing to phenomenal increases in the cost of such contracts..................................
The PEP also deplores the trend that has emerged of favoring foreign companies over their local competitors, even in circumstances where the local company is offering a lower and more reasonable price."
The recent revelations of the Governor of the Central Bank have confirmed the relevance and correctness of the concerns that we raised back in June 2007.
Ideally, Barbadians should be calling upon their Government to institute a Commission of Inquiry into the Dodds scandal, but in the prevailing circumstances that would be tantamount to calling upon the pot to investigate the blackness of the kettle!
The real issue is that this narrow, incestuous two party system of governance is leading our country to ruin, and the citizens need to bestir themselves and engineer a broadening and a concomitant democratisation of the system, thereby facilitating greater accountability. Until that happens, the people of Barbados will continue to be taken for granted and taken for a ride by two political parties that think the same and exhibit the same callous and facile approach to the issue of accountability.
The Dodds issue is nothing short of a scandal, and both the Barbados Labour Party and the Democratic Labour Party must be indicted!
The Barbados Labour Party must be condemned for the shenanigans they perpetrated on the Barbadian people when, in 2005, they initially gave a price of "around $100 million" for Dodds, only to increase it to "$288 million" two years later, and then subjected Barbadians to having to wait a full two years after they left office before details of the full price were publicly revealed for the very first time!
Similarly, the ‘Democratic Labour Party’ must also be condemned for failing in their duties as a Parliamentary Opposition during the period of BLP rule, and for accepting and accommodating the scandalous contractual arrangements entered into for the construction of Dodds. Indeed, it is noteworthy that the new DLP government paid the Dodds debt in 2008 and 2009 without once protesting or even bringing the matter to the attention of the Barbadian people. In fact, Barbadians should take careful note of the fact that it was the Governor of the Central Bank who brought this matter to their attention and shared the relevant information with them - not the Minister of Finance or any other DLP policitican!
The clear conclusion to be drawn from all of this is that the DLP tacitly approved of and went along with what we now choose to call "The Dodds Scandal".
The PEP on the other hand, has been publicly protesting about this matter since 2006! Indeed, in a Press Release dated 4th June 2007, and issued to all the media houses of Barbados, inclusive of the CMC, our party stated at follows:-
"The Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP) is demanding that Prime Minister Owen Arthur explain to the Barbadian people why the cost of the contract to construct the new prison at Dodds in St Philip has escalated from $100 million to $288 million................. The PEP is extremely concerned about this phenomenal increase in the contract price of the new prison........... Indeed, as early as 8th March 2006 our Party signalled our concerns about the prison contract to Attorney General Dale Marshall, when we wrote to him requesting that we be given copies of the construction plans for the new prison and be permitted to visit the construction site at Dodds, St Philip..........................
The Pep demands to know why a foreign firm was selected at a price of $228 million over a local consortium of firms, whose price was much lower at $120 million.............. The PEP denounces the practice that has been routinely engaged in by both the Barbados Labour Party and the Democratic Labour Party of awarding contracts at a particular figure, and then agreeing to phenomenal increases in the cost of such contracts..................................
The PEP also deplores the trend that has emerged of favoring foreign companies over their local competitors, even in circumstances where the local company is offering a lower and more reasonable price."
The recent revelations of the Governor of the Central Bank have confirmed the relevance and correctness of the concerns that we raised back in June 2007.
Ideally, Barbadians should be calling upon their Government to institute a Commission of Inquiry into the Dodds scandal, but in the prevailing circumstances that would be tantamount to calling upon the pot to investigate the blackness of the kettle!
The real issue is that this narrow, incestuous two party system of governance is leading our country to ruin, and the citizens need to bestir themselves and engineer a broadening and a concomitant democratisation of the system, thereby facilitating greater accountability. Until that happens, the people of Barbados will continue to be taken for granted and taken for a ride by two political parties that think the same and exhibit the same callous and facile approach to the issue of accountability.
An Open Letter to Matthew Farley And Other School Principals
Dear Brother Farley
Your column in the Sunday Sun newspaper entitled "Lessons For The PEP" caused our ‘Peoples Empowerment Party’ some concern, because you sought to portray our party as being hostile to the Principals of the secondary schools of Barbados.
Furthermore, you were so intent on publicly talking down to us and teaching us "a lesson" that you were guilty of obfuscating the simple and concrete proposal that we have put forward for reforming and improving the Barbados educational system.
Our proposal was made against the background of an educational system marred by a growing incidence of indiscipline and homosexuality, and characterised by pedagogical deficiencies that are reflected in the fact that some 50 per cent of our students leave secondary school without a single certificate to their name.
We have therefore called for an emergency rescue plan centred around the role of the school principal as the key leader responsible for ensuring the success of his or her school.
Conscious of the fact that we are in recessionary times and that resources are relatively scarce, we proposed that the rescue plan be implemented on an incremental basis, with no more than two secondary schools being tackled each year. At this pace, the entire public secondary school system would be over-hauled in one decade, with the more obviously failing schools being dealt with first.
We have encouraged the Ministry of Education to begin immediately by identifying the two worst performing secondary schools, based on criteria relating to academic success, student discipline and moral standards. (Of course, in measuring academic success one would have to factor in the academic proficiency of the students each school receives in the first form.)
The Principals of these two schools would then be invited to move with haste to draft a practical and comprehensive rescue plan for their schools, and to provide the Ministry of Education with a list of all the inputs and resources that they will need in order to commence the implementation of the rescue plans at the start of the new school year in September 2010.
We envisaged that these Principals would decide that they needed to reduce the size of their classes, and to increase the number of teachers on staff, so that students could receive more individual attention. We also envisaged the Principals requesting specialist remedial education teachers, additional guidance counsellors, and perhaps even the attachment of social workers and child psychologists to the schools.
The provision of these types of resources for two secondary schools is not beyond the capacity of the Barbados government even in this recessionary period!
In fact there are several ways in which these resources can be provided at minimal cost. For example, in order to accommodate smaller class sizes, new class rooms could be built during the long summer vacation, utilising relatively cheap pre-fabricated material or simple ply-wood. In addition, retired teachers can be placed on part time contracts and deployed in the targeted schools.
The Ministry of Education would therefore give the two school Principals all that they ask for, but would also inform them that they will be held accountable for the production of positive results, after a three year period.
If, after three years of the most complete cooperation and assistance on the part of the Ministry, a Principal is still not able to arrest the rot in his or her school, then that Principal should be relieved of his or her duty, and some-one else given the opportunity to accomplish the mission.
This proposal, dear Brother Farley, is not a "broadside" against or an attack on Principals! In fact, the PEP is fully cognisant of the very difficult task that our school administrators have on their hands, and that is why we are constantly searching for ways in which we can assist in the education and development of the young people of Barbados.
Your column in the Sunday Sun newspaper entitled "Lessons For The PEP" caused our ‘Peoples Empowerment Party’ some concern, because you sought to portray our party as being hostile to the Principals of the secondary schools of Barbados.
Furthermore, you were so intent on publicly talking down to us and teaching us "a lesson" that you were guilty of obfuscating the simple and concrete proposal that we have put forward for reforming and improving the Barbados educational system.
Our proposal was made against the background of an educational system marred by a growing incidence of indiscipline and homosexuality, and characterised by pedagogical deficiencies that are reflected in the fact that some 50 per cent of our students leave secondary school without a single certificate to their name.
We have therefore called for an emergency rescue plan centred around the role of the school principal as the key leader responsible for ensuring the success of his or her school.
Conscious of the fact that we are in recessionary times and that resources are relatively scarce, we proposed that the rescue plan be implemented on an incremental basis, with no more than two secondary schools being tackled each year. At this pace, the entire public secondary school system would be over-hauled in one decade, with the more obviously failing schools being dealt with first.
We have encouraged the Ministry of Education to begin immediately by identifying the two worst performing secondary schools, based on criteria relating to academic success, student discipline and moral standards. (Of course, in measuring academic success one would have to factor in the academic proficiency of the students each school receives in the first form.)
The Principals of these two schools would then be invited to move with haste to draft a practical and comprehensive rescue plan for their schools, and to provide the Ministry of Education with a list of all the inputs and resources that they will need in order to commence the implementation of the rescue plans at the start of the new school year in September 2010.
We envisaged that these Principals would decide that they needed to reduce the size of their classes, and to increase the number of teachers on staff, so that students could receive more individual attention. We also envisaged the Principals requesting specialist remedial education teachers, additional guidance counsellors, and perhaps even the attachment of social workers and child psychologists to the schools.
The provision of these types of resources for two secondary schools is not beyond the capacity of the Barbados government even in this recessionary period!
In fact there are several ways in which these resources can be provided at minimal cost. For example, in order to accommodate smaller class sizes, new class rooms could be built during the long summer vacation, utilising relatively cheap pre-fabricated material or simple ply-wood. In addition, retired teachers can be placed on part time contracts and deployed in the targeted schools.
The Ministry of Education would therefore give the two school Principals all that they ask for, but would also inform them that they will be held accountable for the production of positive results, after a three year period.
If, after three years of the most complete cooperation and assistance on the part of the Ministry, a Principal is still not able to arrest the rot in his or her school, then that Principal should be relieved of his or her duty, and some-one else given the opportunity to accomplish the mission.
This proposal, dear Brother Farley, is not a "broadside" against or an attack on Principals! In fact, the PEP is fully cognisant of the very difficult task that our school administrators have on their hands, and that is why we are constantly searching for ways in which we can assist in the education and development of the young people of Barbados.
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