SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

More than a year af­ter a Plum Mi­tan fam­i­ly ap­plied for a school trans­fer for their 14-year-old grand­daugh­ter so she could con­tin­ue her ed­u­ca­tion, they are still await­ing a re­sponse from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MOE). As a re­sult, the teenag­er has be­come a school dropout.

Re­hana Badaloo, whose name has been changed to pro­tect her iden­ti­ty, sat the 2022 Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tion and was placed at Biche Sec­ondary School. How­ev­er, due to fi­nan­cial con­straints she has not been able to at­tend school.

Last Ju­ly, her 68-year-old grand­moth­er, De­or­agie Baldeo, re­quest­ed a trans­fer to Man­zanil­la Sec­ondary School which is clos­er to their home. To date, they have not re­ceived any re­sponse to that re­quest.

Re­hana is one of 2,814 stu­dents who dropped out of school be­tween the start of 2020 and the end of 2022. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 151 pupils in gov­ern­ment pri­ma­ry schools and 2,663 sec­ondary school stu­dents quit school dur­ing that pe­ri­od.

The fig­ures were pro­vid­ed to the Sun­day Guardian by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion fol­low­ing a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion re­quest.

While it is un­cer­tain what these school dropouts have been en­gaged in the last year, many have found them­selves on the wrong side of the law.

Re­hana’s grand­par­ents were among par­ents/guardians re­cent­ly in­ter­viewed by the Sun­day Guardian about their chil­dren’s dif­fi­cul­ties in the school sys­tem since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Cov­er­ing her face with her hands to hide her tears, Baldeo said Re­hana was just one-year-old when her moth­er walked out on her fa­ther. Re­hana’s fa­ther want­ed to give her up for adop­tion but Baldeo and her com­mon-law hus­band, Lu­cian Dan­drade, stepped and be­came her le­gal guardians.

The cou­ple raised Re­hana in­to their rick­ety two-bed­room home at Mar­quis Road. The house, built from crude pieces of lum­ber and sheets of weath­er-beat­en ply­wood, has no in­door plumb­ing and the fam­i­ly us­es rain­wa­ter col­lect­ed in three wa­ter tanks hooked up to gut­ter­ing from their roof for cook­ing and clean­ing.

The on­ly fur­nish­ings in the di­lap­i­dat­ed shack are three bro­ken beds, a tat­tered two-seater couch and a tele­vi­sion set that has stopped work­ing.

Un­der the house, there are clothes draped on a line, dis­card­ed con­tain­ers, spare parts and a swarm of flies and mos­qui­toes. Meals are cooked on a makeshift fire­side.

Six weeks be­fore Re­hana wrote the SEA ex­am­i­na­tion at the Plum Road Pres­by­ter­ian School, her 30-year-old moth­er, a mar­ket ven­dor, died from a mas­sive heart at­tack. She still man­aged to be placed at the Biche Sec­ondary School.

“Gosh, we was re­al­ly hap­py when the re­sults come out,” Baldeo re­called. “Me ain’t get a good ed­u­ca­tion as a child, so it was tears of joy.”

Baldeo, who is bare­ly able to read or write, said the fam­i­ly cel­e­brat­ed her grand­daugh­ter’s achieve­ments. How­ev­er, her joy turned in­to sor­row when she re­alised it would cost her $1,000 a month to send Re­hana to her new school.

The fam­i­ly sur­vives on Baldeo’s month­ly pen­sion of $3,500. On­ly re­cent­ly, Dan­drade, 69, who plants crops on a small scale, ap­plied for his pen­sion but it is still be­ing processed.

“It was too cost­ly to send Re­hana to school. I would be hang­ing my hat where I can’t reach, girl,” Baldeo ad­mit­ted.

Ad­mit­ting that she had to choose sur­vival over Re­hana’s ed­u­ca­tion, she added: “I went to the Biche school and ask them for a trans­fer for Re­hana to Man­zanil­la Sec­ondary which is clos­er to we home and far less ex­pen­sive in taxi fares. It would have cost we $600 a month in trans­port in­stead. I was will­ing to make that sac­ri­fice for she ed­u­ca­tion.”

No word from min­istry

Baldeo put in the re­quest for the trans­fer in Ju­ly 2022. How­ev­er, 13 months lat­er, they have re­ceived no re­ply from the school or the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry.

“Up to now we still wait­ing. I can’t un­der­stand what is the keep back. Re­hana nev­er set foot in a sec­ondary school. A whole year she beg­ging to go to school and noth­ing ain’t hap­pen­ing. Next month school go­ing to open again and the child still home,” the pen­sion­er com­plained.

Baldeo said she feels her grand­daugh­ter is be­ing left be­hind.

Seat­ed in a ham­mock un­der his home, Dan­drade said it pains him every time Re­hana asks to go to school.

“She watch­ing the oth­er chil­dren at­tend school and she home do­ing noth­ing. She was a mod­el stu­dent in pri­ma­ry school and we know she go do well in sec­ondary school but she is not giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty,” he said.

Re­hana will cel­e­brate her 15th birth­day next month.

“Imag­ine if she get in­to the school she will start Form One at the age of 15. She will grad­u­ate from sec­ondary school at 20. That is the age she should be com­plet­ing her de­gree in uni­ver­si­ty. So, every­thing stalling all around,” he point­ed out.

Ac­cord­ing to Dan­drade, no teacher, of­fi­cial of the Min­istry’s Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion, or po­lice of­fi­cer had con­tact­ed or vis­it­ed their home to ask why Re­hana is not at­tend­ing school.

“It’s shock­ing that a child has fall­en through the cracks at no fault of she own and no one has come to find out what has gone wrong,” he said.