A Number of School Infrastructures Are Unsafe Argues B.N.T.U. President

Ruth Shoman

We also asked Shoman for her thoughts on the infrastructural woes being faced at the San Pedro High School. A building at the high school has been deemed unfit for use after its ceiling collapsed. Well, Shoman says this is just one example of many school buildings across the country that are unsafe for teachers and students. She took the opportunity to call on the Government of Belize to, “rush the OSH Bill”.

Ruth Shoman, President, Belize National Teachers Union

“San Pedro has with many other schools, that’s not the only school, we have a number of schools where, again, I am going to tie another one being that I’m a unionist and a part of N T U C B, rush the OSH, because if we don’t start taking this OSH bill seriously, we will continue to see our workers, not only teachers being placed in environments where it’s not conducive to their health. Right now, if we would do a statistics of how many teachers have cancer, how many teachers have kidney problems, how many teachers have died over this past year, and we’re not keeping a track, and we might say, oh, it’s just a building, but you don’t know what that building is causing our teachers who have to be in there all day. Managements need to do better. We need to have better accountability as it pertains to management, not only for San Pedro, but for all the other schools countrywide. And so this is an ongoing conversation with, again, the Ministry of Education and management.”