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Children In Jeopardy Of Not Getting Reports

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Submitted by HaHa
Hon Ronald Jones, Minister of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation
Hon Ronald Jones, Minister of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation

As the school term draws to an end, many schools have been put on high alert as the newly and fully adopted educational management information system (EMIS) Abusstar which was contracted for millions under Minister Ronald Jones (former Information Technology Coordinator) is not producing much needed statistical information.

Apparently, the CEO of the company has requested millions more to be able to produce the statistics and is planning to withdraw the system just before the end of the term leaving schools without the ability to produce reports. Meetings with Principals and ITCs at the various schools were held to inform them of the imminent embarrassment.

Further to this, Barbados is losing valuable aid from the United Nations because they have been unable to produce complete statistics for the last 2 years since Abusstar’s mandatory adoption as instructed by Minister Jones.

Already millions have been paid out and more millions have to be found for a new EMIS during this recession. Apparently Minister Jones signed off on the contract without consulting anyone. Yet another “brave move” by Minister Jones – thanks to science technology and innovation.

Heads should roll or maybe they should be cracked and people should be shot!

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30 responses to “Children In Jeopardy Of Not Getting Reports”

  1. Common sense is not common Avatar
    Common sense is not common

    The prime minister needs to do a complete overhaul of the ministry of education.

    Millions were wasted by mia mottley on the Edutech disaster and now this.

    We are not getting value for money and this is not a ronald jones problem but a systemic problem with civil servants being a big part of the problem.

    I believe any reshuffle should include ronald jones out of that ministry although when compared to past ministers of education like anthony woods and reginald farley he is certainly not the worse although he is by no means the best.

  2. David Avatar
    David

    @Common sense is not common

    Why are you benchmarking to MoEs you perceive as being week (both from the BLP)? Where is the value in the comparison?

  3. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    Ohhh!!! boy.

    Say it ain’t so

  4. Caswell Franklyn Avatar
    Caswell Franklyn

    The problem in the Ministry of Education is that the ministry is being led by a primary school teacher that should not have been allowed to graduate from primary school. He has only a vague understanding of what is required to manage a ministry but has the power to do so.

  5. Can't wait Avatar
    Can’t wait

    this is stale news. The IT coordinators in all the secondary schools met 4 weeks ago and have a been informed to have back-up just in case Abusstar pull the plug on them.

  6. David Avatar
    David

    How is it stale news? Has it been ventilated in public? Has ministry officials explain the challenges to taxpayers?

  7. Can't wait Avatar
    Can’t wait

    You know very well that nothing is discussed with the taxpayers of this country. We just have to take whatever is ‘dished out’ to us. like it or lump it.

  8. David Avatar
    David

    The comment was in response to you labeling the blog stale news. How is it stale if we are hearing about the issue in the public for the first time?

  9. 70th week Avatar
    70th week

    @Common sense is not common
    “We are not getting value … this is not a “ronald jones” problem but a systemic problem …”
    ===========

    Bang on!

    Now substitute “ronald jones” for any Minister/ MP/ PS across the universe of government departments or CEO/ CFO/ MD/ etc. in the private sector and we begin to grasp the scale of the mess in which we are in. This disturbing reality transcends the petty (and often artificial) political divide yet many on this Blog waste countless hours debating idiotic party narratives without focussing on the real issues.

    Apart from Bush Tea and a (very) few others you bloggers are “living in the Matrix”!

  10. David Avatar
    David

    @70th week

    Who will be motivated to change the system if we don’t pressure the actors in positions to mobilize change? Will the system change on its on?

  11. David Avatar
    David

    Who shadows education for the Opposition? Why are we not hearing these issues promoted by them for the benefit of the public?

  12. Caswell Franklyn Avatar
    Caswell Franklyn

    She is spending too much time guarding Mia’s back to be concerned about anything in the Ministry of Education.

  13. 70th week Avatar
    70th week

    @ David

    Your intentions, as noble as there are w.r.t lobbying for changes to the system, are in my humble view slightly misguided. No amount of “patches” will change the “system”. (By system I refer generally to the world political, economic and religious systems.) A wooden house that is riddled with termites and sitting on the edge of a gully in an area prone to land slippage can not be ultimately saved by purchasing many cans of insecticide no matter how sophisticated the chemicals in the can.

    The very foundations of the system are crooked. Logically, if viewed from this perspective the current situation whereby everything feels as though it is beginning to fray at the edges should come as no real surprise. Buying more cans of insecticide; spending more on increasingly complex chemicals and so on may keep the termites at bay momentarily but it is only a matter of time before the house slides over the precipice.

  14. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Caswell Franklyn | June 20, 2013 at 11:22 PM

    Just be careful here, Caswell!
    Edmund Hinkson has lead responsibility to Shadow Education, not Cynthia your dear and true representative.

    Poor wannabe Eddie is more concerned about revenge against that Payne in the ass and his gopher Marshall than matters Education at this stage.

  15. Caswell Franklyn Avatar
    Caswell Franklyn

    Miller

    I stand corrected, thank you.

  16. Oilman Avatar
    Oilman

    I take the point about the country’s problems being systemic in nature but besides de pretty talk and de foot in mouth comments, can anyone tell me one major initiative of true value that the Minister of Education has implemented since taking that position in 2008?

  17. David Avatar
    David

    @Oilman

    A good answer is that they built a couple schools and was finally able to prise Jeff from AX. Not sure if this measures up as affecting systemic though.

  18. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    @ David
    As man
    Can you find ANY fault with that analogy by 70th week @ 11.35 p.m. Re the termite riddled wooden house in the edge of the cliff ?

    Your “so what else can we do?” Response does NOT cut it….! 🙂

    This clearly outlines our present condition and REALITY.
    If we have ANY degree of common sense, we NEED to urgently
    1- recognize our TRUE predicament….
    2- explore our (increasingly limited) VIABLE options
    3- come up with a collective strategic response that CAN work

    Spraying more baygon or bop is just plain IDIOTIC….
    …almost as idiotic as continuing to do what HAS NOT WORKED FOR THE LAST 50 years.

    ….what a PERFECT analogy!

    As a START, Bushie would burn the damn house down. (Fire every one of the brass bowls currently leading FAILED institutions)

    Next, Bushie would SEEK OUT (not invite applications) those few souls who have been able to DEMONSTRATE in their small ways that they can SUCCESSFULLY LEAD ORGANIZATIONS.
    Eg….people who run successful small businesses
    People who run successful schools
    Managers of outstanding businesses
    Fellows who run great social and sports clubs

    Then Bushie would build a new house on this new foundation…with a NATIONAL SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE (led by Caswell or someone of his ilk) in TOTAL charge of governance (in other words, controlling the baygon from UP FRONT)

    ….any termites would surely be exterminated before they even get a chance to breed…. 🙂 …LOL, knowing Caswell, even a few house pets may get sprayed….but they should be able to survive if they are worth squat….
    …..but that is only Bushie….

  19. de hood Avatar
    de hood

    @Bush Tea

    3 cheers to you, Sir. Now when can we expect you to begin mobilising the people of this country to get up off their laid-back, docile rumps and get some action started. Mind you it must not be something to cause Jones and the other failures in govenment to call out de ”troops” to ” crack heads and shoot some peope, hear”! I will not relish any stray rounds entering the little piece of my chattel house hay in de turnin’ to injure any of mine.

  20. David Avatar
    David

    @Bush Tea

    There is no problem with the analogy which reconciles with yours. Our point of departure is that people/stakeholders will have to be the catalyst of the change required.

  21. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    @ de hood
    Skippa, no pain no gain.
    LOL…what chattel house what?! ….you mean the palace 🙂

    @ David
    Don’t back peddle now… Our point of departure is that you would seem to expect that the POWERS THAT BE should be moved to make the changes that are needed.
    IT WILL NOT HAPPEN…..they are an interwoven and interdependent clique.

    The people will have to do it – or continue to watch the house deteriorate and fall off the cliff.
    Who reversed the bus transit fares in Brazil yesterday? Was it the Mayors…? Or the people?

    In a real real country the prime minister would have HAD to wake up by now and given some CLEAR assurance that serious steps were in place to ENSURE that the integrity of the RBPF was being assured….
    Brass bowls just accept whatever is thrown into them….

  22. de hood Avatar
    de hood

    @ Bushie
    You said, quote: “Who reversed the bus transit fares in Brazil yesterday? Was it the Mayors…? Or the people?” Unquote.
    **************************************************************************
    Way to go, Bushie! But Bushie that quote is about people who are willing to MAKE the authorities (government) undertand that they are the employees of the people. Not like us bajans who are prepared to be laid back and go to sleep with the “sleeping giant” when he decides to go to sleep and we all ignore the flames spreading all around us. By the time we wake up de house dun bun down! But you know what? Those like the “sleeping giant” would be far, far away in some place away from the flames! AH LIE!!

  23. de hood Avatar
    de hood

    @ BT

    Bushie, let me extend an invitation to you. Now this invitation is to occur AFTER I become the Chairman of the Integrity Commission and I can then invite you, as the LotO, to come have a drink @ my humble abode in de Turnin’. Then you will decide if it is a chattel or Palace. Deal? 🙂

  24. David Avatar
    David

    @Bush Tea

    No at all, after the dry talk there must be some enabling action to drive people to respond. It is one thing to say the people have to do it, it is another for the people who have to do it to get that realisation.

  25. de hood Avatar
    de hood

    @ David

    Question. . . . This guy Ronald Jones, was he not a compadre of the infamous Jack Warner former VP of FIFA? Wonder if he got his training from JW?

  26. lol10 Avatar
    lol10

    Can anyone from the DLP tell me anything Ronald Jones has done for education- the bedrock of our economic existence- since he was Minister?
    This man is a FAILURE in all aspects.

    Ohh just remember, he rename some schools!!! Guess that is enough to draw a minister’s salary!

  27. Common sense is not common Avatar
    Common sense is not common

    I would like to see Jeff Broomes as Junior Minister of Education.I believe that man has some darn good ideas to move education forward.
    The problem is, that it matters not who you put as minister of Education, unless you change some of the civil service players and change the rules governing them at the Service Commission,we going nowhere fast and our money will continue to be wasted.

    Big,big chunks of it too.

  28. lol10 Avatar
    lol10

    Consider this,
    For a Clerk to fill a vacancy, he/she must have the relevant qualifications. For a politician to be elected, you just need to be popular. Isn’t something wrong with that?
    Our leaders of the country need not know anything about the Ministry they run, the excuse is that there is a Permanent Secretary however if we want new thinking, innovative ideas we must elect suitably qualified people who have a vision for moving this country forward.

    Education is now in a state of drift and inertia. Nothing new, nothing innovative, nothing to take the country to another level. Barbados is becoming a failed country and we the masses seem powerless to do anything about it. Or maybe we are afraid of getting our heads cracked or being shot.

    Barbados- Oh what a SHAME!!!!!!

  29. David Avatar
    David

  30. pieceuhderockyeahright Avatar
    pieceuhderockyeahright

    A boy in the district builds kites. He is rather good at it and goes to our national kite flying contest on May Day and wins the 1st prize for his talent and miraculously we appoint him as the lead pilot to fly our flailing regional airline LIAT.

    The fact is that we cannot blame Fumble or Seethru or anyone other than ourselves.

    Until and unless we get up off our backsides and put ourselves on the political ballot and expose ourselves to the lies and castigation of a general election, all of us are going to suffer at the hands of clowns like green verbs Jones, Todd, dale Marshall, Noel Lynch and the whole band of misfits that are only there for the pension and, even if they wanted to, are bereft of any skills and commensurate thoughts to guide our country through this or any storm to come.

    Put aside all these moans and groans and demand more competent representation. That popularity bullshit is not cutting it any more

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