Pavi­t­ra Ramharack

If I had to ar­gue my one grouse with our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, it would be its fail­ure to de­vel­op a well-round­ed child. It would seem that our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem is en­gi­neered to­wards train­ing chil­dren to sit ex­am­i­na­tions. There is very lit­tle time or en­er­gy ded­i­cat­ed to teach­ing prop­er life skills that can equip a child for life out­side of the class­room or ex­am­i­na­tion hall. When com­pared to the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tems in oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions, it is easy to de­ter­mine how bad­ly we fall short.

Sad­ly, this fail­ure falls even more heav­i­ly on the shoul­ders of de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools. Agree­ably, de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools in most in­stances out­per­form gov­ern­ment schools, which falls with­in acad­e­mia and their abil­i­ty to train chil­dren for an ex­am­i­na­tion. But what, if any­thing, do our chil­dren learn be­sides the abil­i­ty to sit a test?

Not all schools, and in par­tic­u­lar de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools, ex­tend their teach­ing to in­cor­po­rate oth­er re­li­gions, cul­tures and tra­di­tions. There are some de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools that refuse to al­low their chil­dren to par­tic­i­pate in cer­tain ac­tiv­i­ties be­cause it does not align with their re­li­gious be­liefs. It has al­ways been my un­der­stand­ing that our Ed­u­ca­tion Act en­vi­sions a sys­tem where­by a stan­dard cur­ricu­lum and pol­i­cy are adopt­ed in a uni­formed man­ner.

Fur­ther, de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools ac­cess a lev­el of state fund­ing. Why then are the chil­dren be­ing de­nied the abil­i­ty to learn and par­tic­i­pate in oth­er re­li­gious or cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties en­joyed by the coun­try at large? In essence, we are sti­fling their growth and abil­i­ty to de­vel­op in­to tol­er­ant and un­der­stand­ing adults.

Sad­ly, the on­go­ing fail­ure by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and cer­tain de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools has the ef­fect of tram­pling on the rights of the child, in par­tic­u­lar, their rights to par­tic­i­pa­tion, opin­ion and cul­ture.

I tru­ly be­lieve that it is im­por­tant to de­vel­op a well-round­ed child. Thank­ful­ly, where our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem fails us, there are oth­er groups that have tak­en up the man­tle. It is al­ways im­por­tant to recog­nise a job that is be­ing well done.

With this in mind, I ded­i­cate this week’s space to my chil­dren, their lead­ers and par­ents. When I say my chil­dren, I do not mean sim­ply the two who I have giv­en birth to, but all of the chil­dren who form part of our ac­tive Scouts group, who I have seen grow and blos­som in the last few years.

In recog­nis­ing their growth, I must al­so ap­plaud the par­ents and fam­i­ly who du­ti­ful­ly stand be­side them with en­cour­age­ment and sup­port, and, most­ly im­por­tant­ly, the ex­cel­lent lead­er­ship of their Scout lead­ers Ms Pre­matie, Sachin and Mo­hi­ni.

Our group, in recog­nis­ing and pro­mot­ing the rights of the child, treats all chil­dren as equals and lead­er­ship roles are en­cour­aged and fos­tered based on abil­i­ty and skill. The chil­dren ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pate in de­ci­sion-mak­ing con­cern­ing their train­ing, fundrais­ing ac­tiv­i­ties and events in which they wish to par­tic­i­pate. They are able to learn every­day life skills which will guide them in­to their adult years.

Our chil­dren, with the youngest be­ing five, have been taught to cook, hunt, fish, pitch a tent and oth­er such sur­vival skills. They en­gage in ses­sions with qual­i­fied peo­ple tu­tor­ing on first aid, safe­ty pro­to­cols and so­cial aware­ness.

The chil­dren al­so vol­un­teer and par­tic­i­pate reg­u­lar­ly in char­i­ty work, in­clud­ing food col­lec­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion. They have al­so at­tend­ed cer­tain homes and as­sist­ed in clean­ing, paint­ing and gen­er­al main­te­nance works to as­sist the res­i­dents.

Fo­cus is al­so aimed to­wards their phys­i­cal health, with ob­sta­cle cours­es, hikes (dur­ing the dry sea­son) and par­tic­i­pa­tion in 5K events, to name a few. Most im­por­tant­ly, they are en­cour­aged to take part in all cul­tur­al and re­li­gious events de­spite their own re­li­gion or eth­nic­i­ty.

On Sun­day, Feb­ru­ary 22, our Scout group, to­geth­er with the In­ter­na­tion­al Scout­ing bod­ies, ob­served Founder’s Day. This day marks the birth­day of the found­ing fa­ther of Scout­ing, Lord Robert Baden-Pow­ell, and marks a day of re­flec­tion and the re­new­al of the scout­ing promis­es.

I watched as our boys and girls proud­ly com­pet­ed against each oth­er to com­plete the ob­sta­cle cours­es, rise to the chal­lenge of suc­ceed­ing at their quiz com­pe­ti­tion and ap­plaud­ed the strength of their fel­low scouts while as­sist­ing and en­cour­ag­ing oth­ers in their ar­eas of weak­ness­es.

What I saw was the blos­som­ing of well-round­ed chil­dren. Chil­dren who are able to lead with pride and un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate the need for team­work. There was no dis­crim­i­na­tion against boys or girls; re­gard­less of their sex, they com­plet­ed the same ac­tiv­i­ties, whether it was climb­ing a tree or mov­ing heavy trac­tor tyres. They were a group of chil­dren ready­ing them­selves for a world out­side a class­room.

A world that is not as kind as we would like it to be. Look­ing on, I ap­pre­ci­at­ed a quote by Lord Pow­ell, “A week of camp life is worth six months of the­o­ret­i­cal teach­ing in the meet­ing room.”

Our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem is in need of re­vamp­ing. We need to re­con­sid­er our syl­labus, our as­sess­ment of chil­dren and our teach­ing strat­e­gy. We need to recog­nise the world out­side of a class­room and pre­pare our chil­dren to face the hur­dles of that world. We need to recog­nise the en­tire­ty of their rights and al­low them to par­tic­i­pate and have opin­ions.

Un­til our sys­tem can be re­vamped, as pru­dent par­ents, we should find al­ter­nate means to en­sure that we have well-round­ed chil­dren and not on­ly chil­dren who can sit an ex­am­i­na­tion.

Pavi­t­ra Ramharack is head of cham­bers at Pavi­t­ra Ramharack At­tor­neys at Law and can be reached at ramharack_pavi­t­ra@out­look.com