BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - THE top echelon of the Ministry of Education might have its priorities inappropriately placed as it relates to the ongoing Basseterre High School/Principal Carlene Morton saga.
This is the opinion of President of the Principals Association Anthony Wiltshire and in an interview with SKNVibes, he explained that an error was made when the focus was placed “on an individual instead of the bigger picture which is the school, all the people who work there and the entire society that this thing can impact”.
Morton - Principal of the Basseterre High School (BHS) has - in recent times - been threatened with disciplinary action for not remaining for the duration of a meeting held in late April. The meeting - according to reports - was to discuss arrangements for occupants of that school to share space with another school owing to the environmental issues.
She reportedly did not remain at that meeting in solidarity with the Teachers Union which was not represented there.
Wiltshire said he understands that education officers should operate within the confines of the system but indicated that rather than launching a “witch hunt” against one person, there is need to focus on the bigger picture.
“You are trying to find a scapegoat so in the sense that is why you move towards the individual in question. Get me clearly... I’m not saying that as an officer...you should not function within the modus operandi of the system but it’s a bigger picture than just what is happening with Mrs. Morton and this meeting that she did not stay in. The picture is bigger than that in that here we are in the middle of July, school re-opens just over a month from now. What is the way forward?
“Mrs. Morton’s situation is of far less importance than the overall situation that we have here. The overall picture is what becomes of the school? Will it become operational by September? What major decisions are going to be taken in terms of where the children are going, where the teachers are going, what effect it would have on parents? Because in your planning, you must know early o’clock how you are going to operate in terms of your child getting to school, your finances and that kind of thing; even the supportive aspect in that you might need to get somebody to keep an eye on your child depending on which school the child is going to.”
The President elucidated that should the situation continue to progress as the current rate,
“come September, people would be no better off in terms of not knowing what’s going on in Basseterre High School. So that is where we feel most of our energy should be channeled and not at Mrs. Morton in terms of being asked to explain why she should not be pulled before the PSC”.
He also weighed in on how he felt the Morton situation should have been handled.
“To me that matter could have been handled internally and....if that doesn’t work, move on to another stage. But that did not materialise and to see that that incident occurred since 29 April and then you come at almost the end of June to rehash to whole issue..., bearing in mind that up to that stage, we had not been privy to the CARPHA report nor the CARIRI report....and those are the main ingredients we are looking at.”
