What is meant by the state­ment: "No child shall be left be­hind?" Does it mean: "There will be op­por­tu­ni­ty pro­vid­ed for every child who qual­i­fied for such op­por­tu­ni­ty?"I favour pro­vid­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in ed­u­ca­tion for the ad­vance­ment of stu­dents pro­vid­ed that they qual­i­fy by per­form­ing sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly be­fore mov­ing for­ward.What has been hap­pen­ing dur­ing the past 30 or more years was in­ter­pret­ed to mean that even if a child could not read, write, com­pre­hend or solve sim­ple sums, that child would nev­er­the­less be placed in the sec­ondary school sys­tem.For many years, teach­ers in sec­ondary schools have been com­plain­ing about the poor qual­i­ty of stu­dents they re­ceive from the pri­ma­ry schools.Even from their ear­ly days in sec­ondary schools, such chil­dren, who did not ac­quire a sound foun­da­tion while in the pri­ma­ry sys­tem, are la­belled "prob­lem" chil­dren.

They are un­able to cope with the school­work, are of­ten dis­rup­tive and af­ter two years or more they drop out of the sys­tem. It is the fault of the sys­tem.If a child does not ac­quire a prop­er foun­da­tion while in the pri­ma­ry school sys­tem, then how can he/she be ex­pect­ed to do the work of Form One at the sec­ondary lev­el? And should that child, who could not do the work re­quired in Form One, be pro­mot­ed to Form Two, as hap­pens at present?I am aware of many ex­am­ples of slow learn­ers or late bloomers, chil­dren who were slow learn­ers in their pre-teen years but through hard work and per­se­ver­ance have de­vel­oped in­to good stu­dents.We must have a sys­tem in which op­por­tu­ni­ty is pro­vid­ed for re­me­di­al work for those chil­dren who do not pass the SEA ex­am and who can­not read, write, solve sim­ple sums or com­pre­hend sim­ple state­ments. I sug­gest the em­ploy­ment of re­tired pri­ma­ry school­teach­ers for this func­tion.

We can­not con­tin­ue to place such slow learn­ers in sec­ondary schools from which they drop out at age 14 or 15.The present sys­tem, by not pro­vid­ing for slow learn­ers, is de­fi­cient and an ear­ly so­lu­tion to re­solve this prob­lem must be found and im­ple­ment­ed with­out de­lay.Dai­ly we are los­ing too many of our young peo­ple, pos­si­bly due to a lack of ba­sic ed­u­ca­tion, re­sult­ing in a lack of self-es­teem with no goals in sight and with­out an ap­pre­ci­a­tion for life.Re­cent­ly, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Tim Goopeesingh, Plan­ing Min­is­ter Bhoe Tewarie, Prof Sel­wyn Ryan and var­i­ous in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors have com­ment­ed on the poor re­sults and low per­cent­ages of pass­ing grades at­tained at the SEA and CXC ex­ams. How­ev­er, while they have recog­nised that there is a prob­lem, no one has made any sug­ges­tions for im­prov­ing the sit­u­a­tion, or have I missed it?

I have not seen any com­ments from TTUTA on this mat­ter.The ques­tion may be asked: How many of the stu­dents be­ing placed in sec­ondary schools this year will com­plete the five-year course and how many will at­tain full CXC cer­tifi­cates?

While at pri­ma­ry school, in ad­di­tion to the three Rs, pupils must be taught to ap­pre­ci­ate and have re­spect for our coun­try, their teach­ers, par­ents, class­mates, for all oth­er peo­ple and prop­er­ty, and for au­thor­i­ty.They must be taught hon­esty and in­tegri­ty.Stu­dents must be taught to ap­pre­ci­ate the val­ue of ed­u­ca­tion and why they must be at­ten­tive in class and do their as­signed work dili­gent­ly.

Al­though I am em­pha­sis­ing the need for a sound foun­da­tion at the pri­ma­ry lev­el, I am ful­ly aware of the many ob­sta­cles with which chil­dren, es­pe­cial­ly those from low-in­come homes, are con­front­ed dai­ly.We must ap­pre­ci­ate that many peo­ple have over­come pover­ty and through ed­u­ca­tion and hard work have be­come suc­cess­ful and gen­er­al­ly good cit­i­zens. We have many suit­ably qual­i­fied and ex­pe­ri­enced ed­u­ca­tors who con­tin­ue to be silent, but who may have the ap­pro­pri­ate so­lu­tions which would solve this prob­lem which is re­sult­ing in the waste of so many of our young peo­ple.

Neil Alexan­der