JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Friday, July 11, 2025

A call for leadership in schools

by

12 days ago
20250629
Helen Drayton

Helen Drayton

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.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored