标签： Barbados

A 26-year-old local general laborer is now in custody at Dodds Prison after a court appearance on a firearms charge directly connected to a shooting that rattled the Chapman Lane neighborhood earlier this June. Mahindra Alexander Thomas, a resident of Emmerton Lane in the Chapman Lane district of St Michael, faced proceedings before Acting Chief Magistrate Douglas Frederick at the No. 2 District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court.

The accusation against Thomas outlines that he discharged a firearm while committing the serious indictable offense of affray during the June 3 incident. Court procedure dictated that no formal plea was entered for the indictable charge, as the case advances through the legal system. Represented by his retained defense attorney Simon Clarke, Thomas was ordered to be remanded into custody ahead of his next scheduled hearing. He will next appear before the District ‘A’ Traffic Court for a procedural update on July 20.

As Caribbean nations work to strengthen their support systems for at-risk young people, Barbados’ Minister of Home Affairs Gregory Nicholls has issued a stark warning: uncoordinated disaster response frameworks will exacerbate harm for vulnerable youth already navigating complex trauma and systemic disadvantage. His remarks came during the opening ceremony of a two-day regional workshop hosted by the Caribbean Association of Probation and Parole (CAPP) and the Barbados Probation Service, held at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre. Titled “Rooted in Resilience, United in Strength: Trauma-Informed Practice and Crisis Preparedness for Juvenile Justice Practitioners”, the event is backed by funding from UNICEF and brings together cross-sector professionals from across the region.

Nicholls emphasized that many young people engaged with juvenile justice and social services carry long-standing burdens of childhood abuse, interpersonal violence, grief, and systemic instability — challenges that make them far more susceptible to harm when public emergencies strike. “For this population, a disaster is never an isolated, one-off event,” Nicholls explained. “It is an escalation of existing hardship, one that rips open unhealed wounds and can erase months or even years of fragile progress if service systems are not prepared to respond in a coordinated, compassionate way.”

This reality, he argued, places a non-negotiable responsibility on all relevant institutions to build trauma-informed preparedness, align response protocols, and deliver intentional, consistent care. By convening stakeholders from emergency management departments, probation services, law enforcement, judicial bodies, education systems, social welfare agencies, and health care providers, the workshop signals a growing recognition that fragmented, siloed approaches cannot keep vulnerable young people safe. “Fragmented responses fail. Only interconnected, coordinated systems can deliver the protection these youth need,” Nicholls told attendees.

He pointed to the growing partnership between the Barbados Probation Service and the Department of Emergency Management as a model for the cultural shift the region needs. This collaboration marks a break from the isolated, department-specific planning that has long dominated crisis response, moving instead toward a model of shared accountability. “This shift away from silos is not an optional reform,” Nicholls stressed. “It is an essential change to protect the young people who depend on our systems.”

Over the course of the workshop, participants will focus on two pressing, underaddressed issues: suicide prevention for at-risk youth and critical incident stress management for frontline practitioners. Nicholls highlighted that both youth and the professionals who support them face growing strain from these challenges, noting that institutional investment in practitioner well-being is inseparable from efforts to build youth resilience. “We cannot talk about building resilience for the young people in our care if we ignore the well-being of the people who show up every day to support them,” he said. “If we fail to support our frontline practitioners, we weaken the entire system that protects vulnerable youth.”

For Nicholls, the workshop is far more than a routine training exercise: it is a targeted effort to build regional capacity, save lives, and embed resilience in the communities and systems that need it most. “This work is about making sure that when the next crisis hits — and it will hit — we do not fumble through a reactive response. We show up with clarity, compassion, and the competence to protect those who need us most,” he said.

Chief Probation Officer Dr. Angela Dixon echoed Nicholls’ concerns, explaining that natural disasters and public emergencies inevitably compound the existing vulnerabilities of young people engaged with juvenile justice systems. Too often, she added, the professionals responsible for supporting these young people are expected to navigate crises without adequate training, preparation, or institutional support. This regional workshop is the first of two planned sessions designed to close that critical support gap.

Dixon emphasized that the insights and professional connections forged at the event are intended to spread beyond Barbados, taking root in other Caribbean territories to build a truly regional response capacity. “We are incredibly grateful to UNICEF for their partnership and funding that has made this important work possible,” she said.

The 2025 Barbados Secondary Schools’ Entrance Examination has delivered a mix of celebration and urgent concern for the island nation’s primary education system, after one standout campus claimed the country’s top performing boy and girl, while educators sound the alarm over plummeting national English proficiency scores.

St Gabriel’s Primary School emerged as the clear standout of this year’s exam results, securing the top two overall scores for male and female candidates, and placing four of its students in the national top 10 rankings. But even as the school community celebrates this historic achievement, local educators are using the moment to draw attention to a growing systemic challenge: a sharp, nationwide drop in English performance that they warn threatens foundational learning across all subject areas.

Official data shows the national average English score fell more than eight points this year, dropping from a mean of 72.5 in 2024 to 64.2 in the 2025 exam cycle. This decline has prompted educators across the country to call for urgent, system-wide action to rebuild student reading habits, which they identify as the core root of the poor English outcomes.

Annabelle Thornton, a Class 4 teacher at St Gabriel’s who instructed this year’s top female performer Xiomara Alexis Lascaris, told reporters she is immensely proud of her students’ successes, and credits the school’s holistic, balanced approach to education for its top results. Unlike many institutions that narrow their focus exclusively to high-stakes exam core subjects, Thornton explained St Gabriel’s prioritizes a broad curriculum that nurtures well-rounded learners.

“I feel extremely proud of Xiomara and every one of our students who sat this exam,” Thornton said. “They put in tireless work for months, and these results are a testament to that effort.” She added that the school does not funnel all its resources into mathematics and English test preparation alone, instead ensuring students get regular exposure to science, Spanish, religious education, drama and music to build diverse skills.

At the same time, Thornton emphasized that even at high-performing St Gabriel’s, reading remains a non-negotiable foundational priority that the school prioritizes every day. “Reading is the base of all learning, full stop. It doesn’t matter what subject you’re teaching — if a student can’t read fluently and with comprehension, they can’t succeed,” she explained. “That’s why I believe every primary school across the country needs to make expanding reading opportunities a top priority right now, given these falling English scores.”

To build reading proficiency, Thornton said St Gabriel’s integrates a wide range of reading materials into daily lessons, from traditional comprehension exercises to newspaper articles, general interest magazines and sports publications that meet students’ individual interests. “We push reading more than many other skill areas because it is the foundation that everything else builds on. There’s no way around it,” she said.

Beyond a broad curriculum and strong reading focus, Thornton added St Gabriel’s longstanding commitment to project-based learning and extracurricular engagement has helped its students grow into confident, articulate, well-prepared learners. “We’ve always structured our program around termly projects, which get students applying their skills to real topics rather than just memorizing for tests,” she said. “We’re a balanced school that cares about more than just test scores, and that shows in how our students perform and present themselves.”

Kirsty Lashley, another St Gabriel’s educator who worked with this year’s cohort of top performers, echoed Thornton’s praise for her students’ hard work, while noting that the school community remains focused on students still waiting for their results. “I’m absolutely delighted for the students who have already seen their hard work pay off with these strong scores, but we’re also thinking of those who haven’t received their results yet,” Lashley said. “Every single one of these students worked incredibly hard over the past year, and they all deserve recognition for that effort. When it comes to our school’s success this cycle, I think we’ve just been truly blessed.”

As the country processes the 2025 entrance exam results, the call for expanded reading investment in primary education is expected to move to the forefront of education policy discussions on the island, as educators work to reverse the ongoing decline in English performance.

On the much-anticipated results day for primary school students transitioning to secondary education, the halls of St Paul’s Primary School, located on Brittons Cross Road in St Michael, hummed with a complex tapestry of emotions: unbridled excitement, quiet relief, and raw, heartfelt emotion. Students and educators gathered to mark the milestone, celebrating successful school placements before the cohort moves on to the next chapter of their academic journeys.