The Ministry of Education is determined to make all secondary schools elite educational institutions.
This is one of the main priorities of Education Minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh, who is implementing measures along with stakeholders in the system to deal with serious acts of violence and indiscipline among students in the school environment.
Dr Gopeesingh, the Member of Parliament for Caroni East, is lamenting the lack of respect for the law by the adult population.
Q: Dr Gopeesingh, I am sure you do know about the movie of years gone by, Blackboard Jungle?
A: (At his Hayes Street, St Clair, office Thursday evening) I have not seen it, but I have heard about it. And you are asking that in the context of…?
Present-day acts of serious violence and indiscipline at the nation’s schools. And aren’t you concerned that the negative conditions portrayed in the movie are already showing up at our schools?
Well, we are experiencing a tremendous amount of dysfunctionality, particularly in the secondary schools. They are not doing the things they are supposed to be doing, and they are doing the wrong things, and there are a number of infractions that we are dealing with.
Do you have at your fingertips statistics on the degree of this problem?
(Head bowed and eyes closed, the effect of Parliament’s sitting up to 8.30 am Thursday morning) Last year there were approximately 2,200 students who were suspended from schools for a seven-day period. Subsequent to that approximately 700 of these had to have extended suspensions.
What about expulsions?
There are students who have participated in major criminal activities and who are before the courts of law, and therefore they cannot continue in the schools.
While the matters are being heard there is a process to be looked at before those students could be expelled from school.
How do these figures compare with, let’s say, the last five years?
We haven’t done a statistical analysis in terms of comparison over the last seven or eight years, and this is what I am trying to get. Whatever it is, this is something that is unacceptable and is something that we are grappling with.
What is your ministry doing to contain this untenable antisocial conduct?
We have been implementing a number of measures (shuffling some papers on his desk), one from the preventive aspect, just like any crime—early detection—and then management of the problem.
Do you believe, Minister Gopeesingh, in the good old maxim “spare the rod and spoil the child”?
(Chuckling) I know where you are coming from, Clevon, and it’s not a matter of belief in the maxim. Corporal punishment for school children, which is where you are getting at, that has been out of the school system for the last 13 years.
That is not in keeping with the respect for the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It cannot be implemented in our schools, and just a few countries in the world have been left with corporal punishment. Anything to deal retrogressively with that is not functional at this time.
Dr Gopeesingh, I am prepared to argue that the problem starts in the home and like you said last week...
I am glad you agree with that, and we have 50 per cent of the population in Trinidad with single-parent homes, that is what I have been advised.
Does this figure reflect the ethnic composition where the problem exists?
No. We have not looked at this issue at all, and the fact is that a number of mothers do a tremendous job because there are too many absent fathers.
You are aware that there are absentee mothers also?
Sure, and that is what I have been trying to indicate to you…that it is a multi-factorial situation, and this is why we have examined at the ministry all the recommendations and task force reports from as early as 1985.
We have a very active committee at this ministry which has been working with the principals and other stakeholders for the implementation of a number of programmes to help in reducing the incidents and the prevalence of this abnormal behaviour, more focused at the secondary level.
Dr Gopeesingh, last week you ran into some criticism for speaking about “high-risk” schools…
Yes and I saw someone asking how we determine high risk and if we so label a school. I agree to some extent with the thought process on that, and I would really like to see all 134 government and assisted secondary schools excelling and doing extremely well. Unfortunately that is not the situation.
Have you given any thought to...?
(Interrupting with eyes closed) Hold on. One of the problems related to that as well, is that the intake of students at the government secondary schools is weaker than those who go through the board schools, because the boards cream off the best at the top in the SEA examination.
What we have to ensure is that we try to make every school what you call, “elite schools.” A school that is high in performance, not necessarily academic performance alone, but one that will ensure the holistic development of our children. This we have been searching for.
How is this search being conducted?
Not necessarily searching for it in the manner you may envision, but we have been re-engineering the process and a paradigm shift in the education system.
As you know, we have changed the primary school curriculum and we have now introduced areas of physical education (itemising them on his fingers), the performing and visual arts, values, ethics, morals, some degree of agri-science, health and family life education.
And the whole methodology of assessing children is changing, which is the major paradigm shift that we are doing in the primary schools.
We are also ensuring that we bring about universal early childhood education so that our three- and four-year-old students (a total of 70,000) receive a formal education with a very strong curriculum.
Why?
So the feedstock into the primary sector will be stronger, and we are looking at the special needs children because we believe that 30 per cent, from the research we have been doing, they have some problems such as emotional, behavioural/psychological abnormalities, attention deficit disorder, visual and hearing challenges.
Returning to the serious acts of violence and indiscipline at secondary schools, Dr Gopeesingh, has your ministry been able to ascertain whether there was a correlation between this phenomenon and the socio-economic standing of offending students?
(Rocking his body backward and forward on his chair) Statistics around the world have shown that poverty is not directly related as such to this type of behaviour.
We never had that high degree of violence and indiscipline as young people going to school in the past...
Well, we never had that amount of students in the first place. There is free education for all now, there is close to a quarter-million children in our schools.
Long ago you had both parents there at home most of the time; now the economic pressures of society prevent parents being there for their children.
But let me tell you, I was born—thousands and thousands of us were born—out of very humble beginnings. I was born in an ajoupa home, slept on a dirt floor on a pall, mud walls, right? And we had to cross a lagoon to go to school. You washed your feet and you dried it at a standpipe and went to school with books in a flourbag.
Yet in those days there was respect for authority and authoritative figures. When did it start going wrong?
This is why we are now re-engineering and reprocessing the Ministry of Education, because we knew that this has been lost from our schoolchildren for a long time now.
The lack of respect for the law even in our adult population, jaywalking, littering, driving recklessly—and this is why we have introduced, on a strong basis, values in education.
Last week, Mr Minister, Dr Ramesh Deosaran, who wears many highly respected hats, told me that he wants to tweak the school safety officers programme as a mechanism to deal with school violence.
(His head leaning back on his chair and eyes closed again) We have two per school at this time, and their role and function is now being examined to see how they could play a more critical and full role in the management of the school situation as well.
A little on the politics...Do you see the July 29 by-election in the Chaguanas West constituency as a vote of confidence or no-confidence by the electorate in the ruling People’s Partnership administration?
Well, it is a seat which is one of the strongest for the United National Congress, the party is very strong.
We know that Mr Warner wants to contest the seat, but that is a situation which has to be left to the executive of the UNC for its determination.
If the party should lose the seat?
Well, I don’t want to look into the future like that (laughs).
The talk on the ground is that if he should go up on a UNC ticket he would win, but if he does so as an independent it would be harder for him to win.
I have not been able to have the knowledge of the polls and the sentiments of the people.
I have seen Mr Warner working in the constituency.
The party has not determined its candidate yet, but I don’t want to make any comments until that determination is made.