A major controversy over non-standard teacher employment is roiling the recently reopened Alma Parris Academy in Barbados, with the island’s main teachers’ union warning that a proposed independent contracting model could reshape the entire public education system if allowed to stand. The conflict, which centers on three affected teaching staff at the St Peter-based institution, has broader implications for job security and working standards across the country’s public schools, according to leaders of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT).
The dispute comes less than two years after the Government of Barbados completed a $1.2 million first-phase renovation project and reopened the shuttered campus, which had been closed for seven years. Rebranded as a specialized academy serving students requiring additional learning support when it welcomed its first cohort of 24 students and hand-picked teaching staff in January 2025, the institution was framed as a fresh, innovative approach to meeting underserved student needs. Then-Education Minister Kay McConney confirmed at the time that all teaching and leadership roles had been finalized and selected.
But the BUT now says school leaders and education officials have moved to hire teachers under a contractor model never before used in the country’s public education system. Speaking on behalf of the union, General Secretary Gilbert Carmichael laid out the core of the union’s objection: the fundamental nature of teaching is fundamentally incompatible with independent contractor classification. Under standard independent contracting agreements, workers set their own hours, negotiate their own pay rates, and provide their own work resources, Carmichael explained. None of these conditions apply to public education in Barbados, where the Education Act requires teachers to follow the direction of school principals and adhere to clearly defined, pre-set job duties that remove all control over the scope of work from the individual teacher.
Beyond the classification mismatch, the union has raised urgent alarms about the loss of worker protections. Independent contractors are responsible for covering their own statutory contributions, and do not qualify for the pension benefits, job security, and employment rights that come with public service employment in Barbados. Carmichael emphasized that the union’s fight extends far beyond the three teachers currently impacted by the policy. If the independent contracting model is allowed to take root at Alma Parris, it will set a dangerous precedent that could erode tenure security and standardized working conditions for teachers across the entire public system in coming years, he argued.
According to a BUT statement released Thursday, the union has already exhausted all internal negotiation channels with the academy’s Board of Management and the Ministry of Education Transformation. Original plans released ahead of the school’s reopening confirmed that approved posts were created for the principal, deputy principal, guidance counsellor and social worker, with all teaching staff to be redeployed from other secondary schools while retaining their existing permanent positions. There was never any public indication that part-time or contracted teaching staff would be needed to meet the academy’s staffing requirements, the union said.
Carmichael noted that the union has corresponded with all relevant stakeholders, and even requested intervention from the trade union representative sitting on the academy’s board. While the union initially believed progress was being made toward a resolution, officials later discovered that only contractual terminology had been altered — the core independent contractor structure remained unchanged. Despite ongoing unresolved negotiations over the employment model, the school board moved forward with advertising open positions at the academy, a move that has escalated tensions.
The union’s position is clear: all teachers at Alma Parris Academy should be hired under the long-established, standardized employment framework that governs public education in Barbados. “BUT would want that teachers are afforded the respect that they deserve and that the laws of the country would be followed in the sense that there is temporary teacher, there is full-time teacher, et cetera,” Carmichael said. “So an independent contractor is new. And we are questioning where it has come from because it’s not part of the educational landscape as it relates to the hiring of teachers.” The union has pledged to protect its members and their established employment rights “at all costs”. Barbados TODAY has reached out to the Ministry of Education Transformation to request a comment on the dispute, and is awaiting a response.