Ministry, union coming to accord

THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION and the Barbados Secondary Teachers Union are one step closer to reaching an agreement on whether teachers will be compensated for correcting the Caribbean Examinations Council’s (CXC) School Based Assessments (SBAs).

Officials from the two groups met yesterday at the ministry’s Constitution Road office, with BSTU president Mary Redman saying afterward that the union was able to clarify for the ministry all of the work involved in SBA at the various levels.

“Obviously they had only a theoretical appreciation of what is involved and we were able to let them understand in a very concrete and practical way the amount of actual work, the hours of work, that go into helping students to prepare that SBA and also in the correction and data entry work,” she told the DAILY NATION.

Going into the meeting, Redman showed the media a 108-page Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) SBA, noting that the teacher had a class of 70 students, inclusive of lower and upper sixth forms combined.

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