Just one per cent of the school population is involved in anti-social behaviour, says Education Minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh.Putting the blame on the parents of dysfunctional students, Gopeesingh said school violence was found not only among children from the lower socio-economic strata but from all sections of society.Stressing that the ministry has done remarkably well over the last four years, Gopeesingh, MP for Caroni East, feels that children with both parents at home were not as affected as those students with absentee parents.
Q: Mr Minister, I am in a vexed mode this morning...
A: (Interrupting with a curious expression at his St Clair office on Thursday morning) Why are you annoyed? You are usually a very pleasant person.
I am aware of that, and I also know that you are one of the hardest working government ministers.
(Another interruption) Thanks for the compliment.
You know what is bugging me, how come you are unable to get a firm grip on the high level of violence at some of the nation's schools? You must admit that is a very debilitating factor in the educational system.
I want to disagree with you. We have steadied the ship as far as that is concerned, and we are moving expeditiously to reduce the matter of dysfunctional behaviour by the students.
Yeah, but still we keep hearing and seeing this type of behaviour on social media.
(Speaking in a soft tone brought on by the flu) We have a quarter million students in schools; 126,000 of these in primary schools; and we have close to 36,000 in early childhood education centres, and the amount of suspensions we have had the last couple of years has been decreasing.About two years ago, Cabinet passed a note to increase the amount of personnel in the Student Support Services division...
This division deals primarily with...?
Primarily, the guidance counsellors, school social workers, clinical and behavioural and educational psychologists.All the secondary schools have guidance counsellors. We have close to 100 school social workers, educational psychologists, and thousands of teachers have been trained in ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) and mediation. The incidence really is less than one per cent of the school population, and we have put a number of programmes and policies in place.
I do not want to break your trend of thought, but I am sure you have seen these children, girls in particular, fighting among themselves with their classmates taking in the sordid action...
This is a reflection of the society that we live in. The schools need to do a certain part, then the parenting aspects, the societal aspect, and the community aspect.
Who has to take the major part of the blame for the unhealthy conduct of these students?
(Quickly) The parents. They have a major responsibility in the disciplining of their children and, unfortunately, we have a lot of students in schools with absent parents and who are being held by their grandparents and, sometimes, even the grandparents are absent.
It is also a matter of upbringing...the values and morals that they established from their homes. You will scarcely find that a school student coming from a home that is well-guided by both parents exhibiting this type of behaviour.You may have the abhorrent ones, but then the community has a responsibility...you see the teachers are the "parents" in schools.
From your experience as Minister of Education, do you find this behaviour is restricted to one segment of the schools' population?
No, I won't stigmatise that at all. You have dysfunctional behaviour from all sort of students.
You are being politically correct, Dr Gopeesingh, with that response.
Well, it is not a matter of politics, it is a reality that you have dysfunctional students existing across the board, not in the lower socio-economic alone, (but) in the middle income group; it is also in the upper groups as well. I am getting reports across the board from schools in the 18 denominational boards.
And with the advent of the social media they are able to film and video certain activities. Not that these were not happening previously. They are brought to our attention and very quickly we deal with them, and we have the teachers being trained to identify the dysfunctional students early.
In addition to that, the SSS (Student Support Services) has established learning enhancement centres, so where these students have been suspended they now move to these areas and are taken by the division and counselled with their parents.
We have established a parenting academy where we have held more than 100 workshops throughout the country educating the parents about parenting in education.
Dr Gopeesingh, do you believe if legislation was passed to hold parents accountable for the unruly behaviour of their children these cases of indiscipline could be greatly reduced?
That would have to be considered in the change of the Education Act. It is something we have to look at and have some discussions with all the stakeholders and, of course, the society as a whole. But that is not an easy thing to put in the act.
(Eyes closed for about 35 seconds). There are students who will misbehave from time to time although they have been well guided and counselled by their parents. Well, how can we hold these parents responsible when even at their home the children may misbehave.So it is something that has to be looked at from all angles before we decide where we go with that aspect of education.
But there is another part of the act we are looking to take to Cabinet very early.
Which is?
Which is the compulsory age for students from five to 16, which is now six to 12, and the national consultation on the curriculum. We are trying to put this in the context of the wider plan for changes to the act.
As I said before, I know you have been doing a lot under your portfolio but...
(Interjecting with a big smile) Oh, I was wondering when you are going to ask me about the performances in the Ministry of Education.
Well you know the saying, good news don't sell.
Well, you started with some bad news, and I think you should give me the opportunity to give you the good news.
Very well...
(Dr Gopeesingh reads from memory a long list of the ministry's achievements including what he has described as the most important item, the fact that T&T is now poised as a world leader in education.The system is being re-engineered, retooled and we are one of the few countries in the world with free education from age three to university level).
(Turning around away from the tape recorder to clear his nostrils) And wherever we go across the world at various conferences, Trinidad and Tobago stands tall in ICT in education. Early Childhood Education, special needs children are now being incorporated into the mainstream education system and so on.
Now you have given that free and lengthy commercial...
(Quickly interrupting again) Well, let me just give you one more. In infrastructure, we stand proud. We have completed construction of 85 new schools, 53 new early childhood education centres.
Somebody was asking on the radio last week, where in the country your ministry has built these schools? Obviously disbelieving that was a fact...
Well this is why we have...we have 16 to formally open and this is the best-kept secret of the ministry.We have those centres across the country and 11 of these are in PNM constituencies, and out of 25 new primary schools, nine of them are in the PNM-controlled constituencies.
We have another eight secondary schools under construction, and 15 school and administrative science blocks are going to be built pretty shortly. And what did the last administration do? They built 22 EECs (Early Education Centres) in nine years; we have built 53. They built five primary schools; we built five already, and 37 more under construction now. And what about the thousands of repair programmes? We spent $36 million in repairs in PNM areas.
Mr Minister, are you playing politics here?
There is no politics in education, Mr Raphael. Every child must be taken care of and the watchwords in this field are equality, accessibility and high quality. These are the guiding principles upon which we base our efforts so that every child must be able to participate in the education process.And no child must be left behind.