The following communication received in the blogmaster’s inbox is self explained. The traffic challenge in Bridgetown and its environs from sun up to sun down is well known. Please discuss for 10 marks.
Why Harrison College is about to Change Hours of Operation
The following communication received in the blogmaster’s inbox is self explained. The traffic challenge in Bridgetown and its environs from sun up to sun down is well known. Please discuss for 10 marks.
96 responses to “Why Harrison College is about to Change Hours of Operation”
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Nothing new here really.
One recalls that for the three weeks of the Australian cricket tour of Barbados in 1965, that school was called at 8:15 in stead of 9:15 to allow staff and students timeto go to watch the cricket.
Worked well. -
A good start to help eliminate traffic
Hoping it would be further extended to businesses as well -
I din go to HC so I don’t knw if my contribution is worth anything. But I don’t see a big deal. A bigger deal would be to ask the parents to drop the children half a mile away, and let them WALK (remember that word) the rest of the way.
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Is this matter about HC?
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SINCE THE TOPIC IS ENTITLED WHY HARRISON COLLEGE IS ABOUT TO CHANGE HOURS OF OPERATION, IT SEEMS TO BE ABOUT HC, WUH YOU TINK?
MY FIRST REMARKS WERE INTENDED TO SAY THAT SCHOOL CAN START AT 8 AM BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN DONE AT HC BEFORE.SCHOOL ALSO USED TO START AT 8:30 AT GIRLS FOUNDATION IN THE OLD DAYS
AN EARLY START IS THEREFORE NOT A PROBLEM.
HOWEVER, SINCE MANY PARENTS ALSO COME TO BRIDGETOWN FOR AN 8 OCLOCK START, I CANT SEE THAT THIS PLOY WILL SERVE TO ALLEVIATE TRAFFIC CONGESTION
BUT THEN I AM ONLY A SECOND, AND WAS PUT OUT TO PASTURE PROBABLY BECAUSE I TEND NOT TO AGREE WITH STUPID IDEAS AS THIS ONE MOST CERTAINLY IS.
ONLY MEMBERS OF THE LOWEST CLASS OF THE EQUINOIDS BELIEVE THAT AN EARLY START TO SCHOOLS LOCATED IN BRIDGETOWN WILL SOLVE TRAFFIC CONGESTION
IN LIKE MANNER, ONLY THE SAME JACKASSES THINK THAT ABOLISHING THE COMMON ENTRANCE EXAM WILL IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF EDUCATION IN BARBADOS.
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We give this Georgie Porgie minus 10.
This Porgie, that is Georgie, has always lacked the ability to see deeper forces within social phenomena.
The change in opening/closing hours at some schools in Bridgetown is merely a symptom of such phenomena.
We would suggest that at its centre it represents certain forms of ‘arrested development’ even mal-development.
Meaning, for example, that the networks around schooling in Barbados, in Bridgetown, have outgrown the loads intended to coexist with schooling, in the past.
We would even contend that the same old and tired curricula which existed when Georgie Porgie was at school remain in place today. That in itself represents an anachronism begging for transformation.
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@Pacha
What would have been useful is Duguid Bradshaw and the technocrats sharing with the public what is the comprehensive plan for traffic management in the city and Barbados. Drips and drabs approach is disrespectful to the Bajan public.
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David
Yours is the obvious issue.
The answer to which will be the same as before.
A bit of tinkering here and there
While the same forces that continue to import vehicles continue to mek dey money.
In short, we are in a cul-de-sac, in more ways than one.
Maybe some pretty talk will emit from the mouths of the technocrats
But there will be no master plan to make Barbados ‘fit’ for the next century.
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@Pacha
It is no secret successive governments have avoided regulating the fossil fuel motor industry because of the smoke filled back room influence and the threat of that industry letting go people.
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@ Georgie Porgie at 7 :50 AM
I, like you,do not think this change of school commencement will improve traffic flow into and out of Bridgetown It shifts the congestion to half an hour earlier. That is from 8:30AM to 8 : 00 AM.
This is just another example of rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking Titanic.
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David
These issues were always bigger than any one administration.
Instead of a representative formation a participatory system might be more helpful.
Barbados is only 21 by 14 miles. One only has to travel to a bigger country to recognize that such a island, Barbados, could have a transportation system where even the PM could go to work on either a bus, a tram, a boat or a bicycle.
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The system we have pander to owners of capital even when it conflicts with the national imperative.
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David
And in so doing we import other peoples’ problems. All the time.
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Vincent
It is also noteworthy that there is congestion in the environs of QC.
From the early 70’s before the resiting of QC to St James. commuters from the north east bound for town turned at Redman’s village on to Prior Park Rd to freely access Bridgetown via Cave Hill drive or Grazettes or St Stephen’s Hill. The resiting of QC to St James has resulted in congestion of Prior Park Rd as well as Clermont Rd from the ABC highway.The difficulty in getting into Bridgetown by drivers via all Highways was evident since the early 60’s. Clearly it has esccalated over the years, and the distance from Bridgetown where the grid lock begins has only increased.
Early commencent of the school day will solve nothing. It will only make morons believe that they are solving a problem.
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Dear President Mottley,
Here is an idea for traffic congestion: One car per household, commercial deliveries between 6pm and 5am, and a congestion charge between 7am and 9am, and 3pm and 5pm. And a proper public transport system – and tell Simpson to bugger off. Problem solved.
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I think a 7:30 start would be better but it is a step in the right direction.
If we had an excellent public transport system/ school bus system, senior students could start at 7:00 and the juniors at 8:00
Unfortunately, we are facing the reality of five decades of poor , ad hoc , planning. It’s time we refer to the loss five decades!
We are depleted of money and visionary leadership. Sometimes it just looks like putting patty on old boards. -
Note that I am not saying that the resiting of QC is the main cause of congestion ion its environs; only that it has exacerbated the trend to do so. As more persons in the north acquired cars and were travellinhg along Highway 2A and seeking to cross over towards Bridgetown, this was bound to happen.
We tend not to think ahead, but only to look for ways to restrain horses long after they have bolted from the stable. -
There will be NO change in the hours of operation of Harrison College. It has been announced that the decision to change the school hours has been rescinded.
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William re I think a 7:30 start would be better but it is a step in the right direction.
That will not help either.As early as the 1963 coming from Rendezvous, there was congestion on Wildey to town, and at the Brittons Hill junction with Lower Forde’s Rd , along Culloden Rd on the Lower Collymore Rock, at the Beckles RTd Baystreet junction and on to town. It was so along Pine Rd and to the junction with St Barnabas and Highway 5.
You are 100% accurate when you opine “Unfortunately, we are facing the reality of five decades of poor , ad hoc , planning. It’s time we refer to the loss five decades!” Actially 6 decades is more acurate
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“Barbados, could have a transportation system where even the PM could go to work on either a bus, a tram, a boat or a bicycle.”
Very true, but
The mindset of the nation needs top be taken into consideration. I used to work less than 5 miles from my home, but to get on a bicycle and go to work teaching at one of the big schools would have been looked down upon.
Our traffic problems are more complicated than cars and roads. It requires more than a shifting of work hours or a change of traffic patterns. Our notions of appearances and keeping up with the Joneses have be a part of our discussion
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@ William,
Neurologists in the UK are now calling for later starting times for teenagers. Read Professor Sarah-Jane Blakemore.
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@ Hal
I have long opined that the school hours at primary school are too long.
@ Georgie Porgie
You are correct that the traffic build up was obvious since the mid sixties even in the dying days of the “board buses” the bus stand was already a mess.
What angers me more than anything else is the plaster on old sores policies that are being heralded as earth shattering.
These culprits( duopoly) literally refused to take an interest in the country and now pretending that all of these problems were unknown.
What are your views about a modern rainy system to radically eradicate our transportation problems? -
a modern rail system not rainy. My apologies.
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The Barbados Government cannot even buy a second hand bus and someone writing about a rail system!! Wuhloss!!
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re What are your views about a modern rail system to radically eradicate our transportation problems?
Interesting but………cost? where will we site it? Something to think about though.
But I will confess that my Eschatological leanings would suggest that it is too late. But then again we might employ it in the millenial reign. -
@ Hal Austin June 29, 2019 9:50 AM
A very good submission. Hopefully ( I don’t expect it) the authorities will contact you.
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@ Ping Pong
Have you never seen a person with an old brek down taxi trying to get a brand new high end one rather than looking for a second hand one ?
The problem here is that we would put millions of dollars into a venture rather than realize that a slight adjustment could solve the problem.
I merely asked : what is the thinking about a modern rail system, that could perhaps slash cars on the road usage by forty percent; transport people quicker and thereby increase productivity and leisure time.
Go ahead and buy a thousand electric buses and still take two hours to get into Bridgetown while living twenty minutes in walking time from Bayville.
If we had a proper school bus system, at least thirty per cent of peak morning and afternoon commute would be less cumbersome.
Anybody will tell you that when school is on vacation, the commute time automatically reduces. And this is true for developed and under developed countries.
Vision is always laughed at until it is achieved. Go and read some autobiographies my friend. Peace. -
@ Robert Lucas,
Thanks
@ William,
We had Transport Board school buses in the 1950s. What happened to them?
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@ Ping Ping
As a youngster , I was told that the gully known as Manning’s Quarry could be built on. The man who told me that, was one of my mentors, who only attended Bay Street school.
I saw his vision when the quarry became Paragon Tennis courts and buildings appeared.
You see my friend , I was fortunate to be exposed , from my teens, to people who had vision and who with limited education went on to achieve remarkable success in several areas of their existence. -
The conversation has moved from the hours of operation of a single school to a discussion of transportation in Barbados.
The discussion is still incomplete.
We need to introduce “latch key kids”. or are we assuming that if other schools follow HC, their students and Collegians all come home to a maids and butlers in the house.
Latch key kids could be a new set of problems, introduced by attempting to patch another problem.
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It may be cheaper, healthier and more sustainable to close schools and build new schools sited in relation to the distribution of the population so that students can walk to school than building a rail system which will cost billions of dollars to build and operate. In any event I can assert that the school hours of Harrison College will not be changed, there will be no expansion of the school bus system and there will be nothing done to alleviate traffic congestion.
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@ Hal
As the Transport Board fell victim to political skullduggery everything fell apart. My brother, the country was sold lock stock and barrel to the highest bidder. That’s why the mini bus culture is rampant. Politicians’ friends and family owned investments in the mini bus industry. You got permits when your party was in power etc. We have to ignore the crocodile tears that are being shed.
Note that there were many blacks who owned private bus companies. So all of this talk about privatization is smoke and mirrors because a sector of black entrepreneurship was slaughtered by the black political class.
Same thing happened in the tourism industry all the small black entrepreneurs were systematically marginalised
Same thing with black owned private high schools………… -
On education
https://www.barbadosadvocate.com/news/new-martell-cognac-launched-barbados
“Massy Distributors has officially added one of the world’s most renowned cognacs to its slate of liquors being sold under its brand on the island. Martell’s line of cognacs, which are infamous for their well-blended and expertly marketed products around the world, had its big launch last Saturday on the majestic grounds of Nikki Beach Barbados located in Six Men’s, St. Peter.”Is ‘infamous’ the right word? Can Massy sue? Do I get a finders fee?
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@William, are you not being too harsh along with some others… But first let’s touch on your comment that “I think a 7:30 start would be better but it is a step in the right direction….If we had an excellent public transport system/ school bus system, senior students could start at 7:00 and the juniors at 8:00”
Speaking just anecdotally I can’t see that senior school teenagers would be up and out daily to meet a 7 or 730 start…@Hal speaks to the experts views on that and maybe the reasoning are similiar to my concerns or maybe not, but based on past expert mouthing of the lazy, hazy sleeping habits of teenagers I am wary of your suggestion.
Consider that such a start would mean reveille at 5:30 latest for most…At least it would inculcate the cadet or scout camp discipline of early must-rise in many if that was tried…but I think not!!
Now to the main point… ok so planning has not been ideally great but certainly the ABC highway planning (which a nat hero supposedly debunked as ill conceived) and its related ability to help expand business beyond the puny Bridgetown corridor was sensible planning to alleviate just this issue of traffic congestion…..(What is special about Bridgetown anyhow as a business locale really…other than a heritage tourist location as some have long propsed …continue to move beyond the 3 -5 sq mile radius, period! )
I too don’t see how the change of school hours will alleviate the particular Bridgetown problem but at least somebody is thinking …even if misguided!
Bottom line the planners need to go way outside the box…rail is impractical (no viable land corridor) and costs could NEVER be economically feasible…how woukd those costs EVER be recovered!…. what of having senior student at the same HC (diligent n studious top boys and girls right) remote link to some classes on some days or for the same 7:30 (in their pajamas)… They come in after rush hour to do labs and other such stuff and then their extra curricula!
@Hal, so what of the noise of the commercial traffic lumbering through the streets in the dead of night, eh! Unless for exceptions I don’t see that as deeply needed…just ensure that commercial traffic does not clog up rush hour times…they can be out and at delivery sites before 730 AM, during the day or between 7- 9 PM !
These are issues handled by many jurisdictions and surely Bdos can continue to build on their sensible planning…and leave aside gimmicks and folly… not all their strategies were badly formed!
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Sometimes we’re much too harsh on ourselves.
Some causation for our problems lie elsewhere.For example, if we look at most of the countries in the world, large and small, since world war two, we see few which have been able to do the mere minimal, like feeding themselves.
This does not happen by accident, it is a construct
The World Bank will never allow countries like Barbados to avoid a form of development which relies on the importation of food from the USA. And we just went there again for money.
The IMF, as always chaired by a European, operates in a similar way.
In this project to keep us underdeveloped and misquided, they can recruit generations of our own people to feed us with the dominant junk economics as supportive of high food import bills.
And if Barbados has not the national determination to do the basics, how is it ever going to be possible to chart the kind of future which minimizes the importation of systems and their problems, from elsewhere?
How can we ever begin to think away from having tens of thousands of cars lying idle for most of the time as creature comforts.
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So govt once again reassured that benefits would be paid out in full measure to pensioners
Why wouldnt the govt speak the truth and tell these people they monies have been exchanged to pay govt debt
As for the NUPW they all need to be place on jet skis and pushed out to sea -
@ Pacha
You buffle me! You are one of the harshest critics of our current socio economic state. Nobody on BU has requested the guillotine more often than you. Now you say we are too harsh on ourselves. We are too soft on ourselves in my opinion. Constantly looking to the new version of Massa to solve our problems only to end up passing test and conditions like eleven year olds!
In recent times you have agreed with going to the IMF.
We can’t get out of the international bankers and loan sharks claws by just analysing them. We need a quantum leap. Just abandon them and let the rupture past. The mind has to be cleared.
To quote Marvin Gaye: Whats going on ??? -
R. Lucas
Good idea and to be implemented by this government?
How are you going to know how many cars per house when most houses does not carry a number?
Ex: R. Lucus
Jackmans
St Michael.
Who is going to pick up the “congestion charges” and at what points???
Are you going to make me pay so much for a car, hit me with the gas tax, then charge me again to try to get my kids, the madam and myself to work on time?Miss Motley is a politician and I don’t think she I looking to commit political suicide for her party.
I am sure she has heard the cry from the country about the taxes. -
UWI approves the establishment of a campus in Antigua.
https://uwitv.org/featured-videos/five-islands-campus-press-conference
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@ Mariposa
A very insensitive statement at this time regarding “ pushing people out to sea on jet skis”
I think you have overstepped the boundaries here.
An apology/ withdrawal is in order. -
The problem could be simplified for alot less than we imagine if we only spent money to maintain the feeder roads. For example if I am heading North on Friday I avoid Warrens completely by going up Shop Hill and dropping down into Content. So simply widening and resurfacing the road from Waterford Round About and then putting in a spur road after the businesses places there by Dwellings straight cross the cane ground or bush ground, to come out above the school there below Bs recycling and Warrens problem done solve for who going north as you have just created a by pass. If you go up Shop Hill now and use that cart road that poses as a road to get to the left turn to Content, you would understand why nobody wants to use it and prefers to sit in the traffic of Warrens with their AC ON cussing about the traffic!
The same can be done to form a by pass for the city just be picking a route and cleaning up the flow. Maybe replace street lights with round abouts etc. So Black Rock all the way up to the round about before Bussa would then be a city bypass option. If you ask anyone why they don’t like that road the answer is always ” too many traffic lights.”
After all they collecting ” ringing” money with the new fuel tax, so spend some and help us frustrated motorist I beg you.
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Why both teens and teachers could benefit from later school start times
Author Bio: James Williams is a Lecturer in Science Education, Sussex School of Education and Social Work at the University of SussexA typical school day in the UK starts around 8.30am. This is often even earlier elsewhere in the world, with students sitting down to their first lesson at 7.30am in the US.
But these early start times can play havoc with teenager’s natural sleeping patterns – with research showing that waking a teenager at seven in the morning for school is similar to waking an adult at four in the morning. And while many adults wouldn’t relish such an early alarm call every working day, it’s a “non-negotiable” expectation for teenagers.
The average teenager ideally needs eight to nine hours’ sleep each night, but in reality a lot of teenagers struggle to get this much – which can then impact their performance in the classroom.
A lot of the problems arise because our sleep patterns are not fixed, and they change as we grow. For teenagers, melatonin – the sleep hormone – doesn’t start being produced until 11pm. This is why teens don’t start feeling sleepy until late at night, and why simply telling a teenager to go to bed earlier doesn’t work.
More: https://world.edu/teens-teachers-benefit-later-school-start-times/
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David BU
So far Gaston Browne has achieved 2 of his main election 5 promises he made to Antiguans.
(1). To take over Barbados’ shareholdings in LIAT to become the airline’s majority shareholder.
(2). To build a UWI campus in Antigua, so Antiguans won’t have to travel to UWI Cave Hill.His third promise………convincing the USA to relocate their embassy from Barbados to Antigua (so Antiguans would not have to travel to Barbados for visas……….. is perhaps proving a bit difficult to achieve at this time.
It seems as though Barbados is always at the “tip of his tongue.”
But……. hey, what the heck……what Gaston wants……… Gaston gets.
Interestingly, Gaston, along with CWI, bought Stanford’s “Sticky Wicket Stadium” (Stanford Cricket Ground) and renamed it “The Coolidge Cricket Ground.”
Guess where the WI cricket team practice sessions are held?
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@Artax
9 out of 10 Antiguans complain about the costs of travelling to Barbados to secure US Visas of which they are frequently denied. They say they have to save for several months to reapply and even then there are no guarantee so Gaston as PM is looking after the needs of his constituents whether he will get the US to acceded to his demands is another story.About the proposed University in Antigua, if the other Caribbean leaders allow him to browbeat them that will be an issue sure as night follows day other islands will want the same thing.
BTW some Antiguans still sing Stanford praises.
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Sir William Skinner
It is you who have to abandon the simple, even simplistic explanations and too rash of responses. In the search for deeper truths you are required to deploy more sophisticated methodologies.
”You ‘baffle’ me! You are one of the harshest critics of our current socio economic state. Nobody on BU has requested the guillotine more often than you. Now you say we are too harsh on ourselves.”’
Well we hold to everything here except for the last sentence. To us being too harsh on ourselves speaks to the absence of interrogation and location of the root cause which was required in the discourse. To us this position is consistent with the former statements. We see no internal contradictions.
Maybe you should give us some examples of similar states, regions, under the yoke of neoliberal-capitalism that have successfully challenged it while deploying straight-up economic confrontation or total abandonment as you suggest, in the absence of a plan to so do.
”Constantly looking to the new version of Massa to solve our problems only to end up passing test and conditions like eleven year olds!”
We certainly have no love for either the World Bank nor the IMF.
In the case of our support for this government’s approaches thereto, our continuing position has been that the country had/has no other options. That we would prefer to loose a leg that to have the whole body politic die. In other words, approaching a loan shark or international banksters than to have a country dying in silence like under the last regime. There were/are no good options.
In addition, you seem to have ignored the kernel our point which was an indictment of every economist we’ve ever seen in Barbados, including that one well-favoured by you.
Our point was that all the economists we’ve known have sold us ‘junk economics’. A brand of economics which makes us dependent on the importation of food, as basic! The deeper understanding would lead to the realization that the international financial system, on which everything relies, would cut us off in a heart beat should Mugabe decides that a radical land reform is the way to go. Should we not consider the deeper geopolitical conditions or would it be better to rely on simplistic and feel-good notions alone.
”’We can’t get out of the international bankers and loan sharks claws by just ‘analyzing’ them. We need a quantum leap. Just abandon them and let the rupture past. The mind has to be cleared.
To quote Marvin Gaye: ‘What’s’ going on ???””’Nobody understands the need for a ‘quantum leap’ more than this writer. We have called for it millions of times. We would estimate that our critiques of the last administration were more biting, more profound, than yours.
But once we found ourselves in an economic pickle it would have been near impossible to again get out with your advice or develop ‘ourselves’ out of it based entirely on internal resources. Remember, we are talking about a country, not a personal financial matter. This is about more than clearing the collective mind. It is a ‘modern’ economy deeply dependent on foreign exchange. And all the mechanisms of foreign exchange are in the hands of empire.
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@ William,
You are right. People like Trotman, Coward, Birch, Tudor, et al all owned buses that worked. The early days of the Transport Board were also good. In he UK I had bragging rights about the Transport Board and voting at 18. Schools such as Modern High, Federal, Barbados Academy, etc. We had school buses, the fares were three cents and we got to school on time in the morning and walked home in the evening.
We are gong backwards, with the rise of the lawyer class. But, @William, have you noticed there is no direction, no vison, from any section of society. There is none from the politicians, the professional class, the academics, none. -
@ Pacha
How can you a truly progressive thinker embrace our country going hand in glove to the same institutions you know and have declared decadent and exploitative of countries such as ours?
Please defend this volte face on your part.
Seems your desire to put them under the guillotine is tempered by their giving you a few million dollars with the understanding that your brothers and sisters must be sent home without the dignity of a paycheck. -
Sir William Skinner
We want to assume that you are being insincere.
Barbados has been, for decades, within the influence of the IMF and World Bank. Such membership is par for course in political-economy.
Do we agree with that state of affairs? No, but it is what it is.
All we have tried to do is to make the least worst choice. This admission is better countered by you suggesting a better and more practicable option.
Your second part obviously can’t be properly directed at us because you, yourself, could hardly believe that. Certainly, you must know that we are more inclined to take whatsoever we want without anybody’s permission, far less the IMF/WB
In addition, we have contended that the ‘few million dollar’, 290M USD, was way too inadequate in the first place. We certainly have no desire for anybody to be sent home. But again, you must tell us what were to be the other scenarios.
Is this your first call for the leading lights of the last regime to be subjected to a meeting with the guillotine?
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Sargeant
I lived and worked in Antigua…….. and travel there often.
I’m aware of what you wrote.
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.