Shal­iza Has­sanali

Prin­ci­pal of North East­ern Col­lege Har­richa­ran Sie­u­nar­ine is ap­peal­ing to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to be­come more peo­ple cen­tred rather than pa­per-fo­cused. Sie­u­nar­ine im­plored the min­istry to adopt this mea­sure while de­liv­er­ing the prin­ci­pal's ad­dress at the school's 2010 grad­u­a­tion and award cer­e­mo­ny for its 383 Forms Five and Six grad­u­ates in San­gre Grande last Wednes­day. Ad­dress­ing a packed hall of par­ents, guardians and stu­dents, Sie­u­nar­ine, promis­ing to rev­o­lu­tionise the school in one year's time with new ideas, a dif­fer­ent cur­ricu­lum and a pos­i­tive mind­set for its 1,000 stu­dents, said he was not pleased with the min­istry's the­atri­cal con­cepts for sec­ondary stu­dents which hin­dered their ca­reer paths to some ex­tent. "We need to al­low stu­dents to pur­sue what sub­jects they like. And that is the prob­lem with the cur­ricu­lum and the chal­lenges in the min­istry. They write the­atri­cal con­cepts for stu­dents who have been far re­moved from the con­cept."

De­spite fac­ing a num­ber of prob­lems at his school, Sie­u­nar­ine said his stu­dents were be­ing of­fered the op­por­tu­ni­ty to pur­sue sub­jects of their choice so they can grad­u­ate with a full cer­tifi­cate and bet­ter grades. Sie­u­nar­ine said while North East­ern Col­lege would keep with­in the min­istry's di­rec­tives, he ob­served that cur­ricu­lum of­fi­cers were not proac­tive in vis­it­ing schools to as­sist teach­ers and prin­ci­pals in plan­ning to im­prove the school's aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance. "The min­istry needs to recog­nise that the fo­cus of ed­u­ca­tion is on the child. My po­si­tion is the cur­ricu­lum of­fi­cers must not sit in the of­fice and plan. They must come to the school and as­sist teach­ers in plan­ning. The min­istry must not be pa­per-fo­cused but peo­ple-fo­cused. "I talk with­out fear or favour." Sie­u­nar­ine al­so said the min­istry must cre­ate a sys­tem of bu­reau­cra­cy that is ef­fi­cient and fast. The prin­ci­pal chal­lenged the min­istry to re-or­gan­ise the way in which its head­quar­ters is run. Form Sixth stu­dent Ve­jey Alexan­der copped the cov­et­ed prin­ci­pal award as well as the Sixth Form Pro­fi­cien­cy Award in the field of sci­ence and maths.

Stu­dents of St James Sec­ondary have a ball at their grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny which was held at the Hilton Trinidad on Wednes­day night. Pho­tos: Sean Nero