The Ministry of Education has admitted that the issue of the late notification of the transfer of principals and teachers for the 2024 Michaelmas term was not effectively handled. In fact, it agreed that the communication on the transfers was “a disaster”. What concerned me was the idea that those who contributed to the disaster would be held accountable. Accountability is not particularly a Barbadian virtue – at least not for those who wield power and authority. This then raises the question of on whose heads the proverbial axe will fall. Will it be some junior low-grade clerk in the ministry or someone else’s?On the occasion of a press conference on Wednesday, September 11, Permanent Secretary in the Education Ministry Wendy Odle noted: “We want persons to be able to prepare themselves emotionally and mentally if they are going into new environments…. Our intention is to ensure that persons know where they will be assigned for the new school year.“We take this matter very seriously.”Of course, this was not the first time this issue of late transfers has occurred. What Odle called “missteps” have happened before. Last academic year 2023-2024, several principals were unceremoniously transferred only hours before the new school year was due to begin. On this matter, let me congratulate my former student and now President of the Association of Public Primary School Principals, Mrs Olwin Gaskin-Walker for speaking out as forcefully as she did recently. The teaching profession will not attract and retain the cadre of good committed teachers required for education transformation if they are treated – to use Mrs Walker’s words – “like chattel”. Was the issue of transfers a misstep or was it a matter of bureaucratic inertia and fatigue in a ministry that is being asked to do too much with inadequate human resources? The imagined education transformation programme is a very complicated project and is proving to be a far more complex proposition than its imaginers ever thought.