According to the Minister of Education Dr Michael Dowlath, “a school without a strong leader is like a ship without a captain.” He acknowledged that school indiscipline and violence are outcomes of a leadership crisis arising from staffing shortages. The alarming number of 21,661 student suspensions over the last three years lay stark against the chronic shortage of principals, vice principals, deans and key administrative staff.
He said the Ministry of Education (MoE) is undertaking a comprehensive review of the programmes and policies concerning student behaviour. Afterwards, “a detailed strategy will be developed, guided by the principle of balance in maintaining safe learning environments.”
Dr Dowlath is a distinguished educator with over three decades of experience in educational leadership who understands the challenges of education. Having identified the critical issue of school leadership, the Government should consider establishing a progressive school leadership centre to play a pivotal role in the training and development of school leaders.
A good teacher is not necessarily a leader. Hence, it’s not simply a matter of promoting teachers into principalship but instead grooming, mentoring, and developing professionals who demonstrate the potential to lead.
A leadership centre isn’t a new idea; 25 years ago, another distinguished educator, Elizabeth Crouch, founded the non-profit School Leadership Centre of T&T, with the mission to build the capacity of school leaders to improve teaching and learning through collegial support, reflective practice, and academic insight. I knew it well, having contributed to its establishment through the Royal Bank Education Foundation, which I chaired.
That centre existed until 2020. It trained teachers in the governance and management of schools. Participants tapped into the knowledge of local and international leaders who shared their legacy of successful principalship and enterprise. Facilitators came from renowned international institutions, including the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Such centres exist in many countries, where principals must attend annual sessions to retool and refresh their knowledge.
School vacancies are a decades-old issue, now intersecting with intractable social problems and systemic crime. The link between educational underperformance and crime is well-documented. Many children graduate from secondary school without acquiring life knowledge and skills—in short, an education. How does the MoE gauge the quality of teaching? Why do over 40% of children fail CSEC and SEA?
Interestingly, on June 19th, a concerned teacher published a letter in the T&T Guardian headlined “Children Slipping Through the Cracks.” She emphasised the need for psychoeducational assessments of children, more educational psychologists, behavioural specialists, and speech therapists to provide consistent services for diagnosed children, as there are insufficient follow-up visits to provide meaningful support. She called for clear policies to assist these children.
There’s a need for reflection and truth. The dearth of school leadership talent and the proliferation of problems are symptoms of inefficient, archaic MoE governance structures. Credible quantitative and qualitative research data should inform strategic educational goals, aligned with national development objectives. Such evaluations and performance audits should guide transformative policies, promotions and recruitment.
Are principals equipped to manage the recruitment, training, development, motivation, and discipline of their staff? Is there a digitised human resource database? Who’s responsible for innovation and building schools’ leadership capacity? There should be a rationalisation of the roles of the Teaching Service Commission and the Department of Education.
Adequate resourcing of primary and early childhood schools is urgent. Intervention at that level can positively impact children’s futures and shut down the engine room of indiscipline and crime. Consideration should also be given to establishing a holistic child development agency that collaborates with the Ministry of Health.
We lament the high incidence of school violence and suspensions, ignoring students’ cognitive abilities and the traumatic events they experience, including emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, bullying, domestic, alcohol and drug abuse, mental illnesses, the death of parents, their imprisonment, and criminal gang involvement. Unsatisfactory parenting, cultivated by intergenerational domestic and community values, contributes to children’s values and behaviours. Such cultures could change primarily through parent education and family planning interventions.
Our schools need change; they are built like jails without proper ventilation, green landscapes and recreational facilities. Above all, they need strong leadership, promoting high educational expectations of all children, a supportive learning environment, effective teaching practices, a positive school culture, with parental involvement, multidisciplinary school boards, adequate resources, and a shared vision.
The critical issue is the quality of MoE’s governance. The quality of school leadership could be crafted at a school leadership centre, for the benefit of all our children.