KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

With a high rate of child­hood obe­si­ty and non­com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases (NCDs), the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is set to crack down on sug­ary drinks and high-fat snacks in schools, aim­ing to pro­tect stu­dents’ health and learn­ing.

The min­istry has act­ed fol­low­ing pre­vi­ous re­stric­tions on sug­ar-sweet­ened bev­er­ages in 2017, which al­lowed on­ly wa­ter, 100 per cent fruit juice, low-fat milk and unsweet­ened blend­ed drinks in gov­ern­ment and gov­ern­ment-as­sist­ed schools. While that pol­i­cy fo­cused main­ly on bev­er­ages, the cur­rent pro­pos­al aims to ex­tend the ban to a wider range of un­healthy food items.

Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Claudelle McKel­lar told a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee that the min­istry is re­view­ing its di­etary pro­gramme, in­clud­ing meals served through the School Nu­tri­tion Pro­gramme, and ex­am­in­ing cafe­te­ria poli­cies with guid­ance from the Min­istry of Health.

“Re­duc­ing the sug­ar con­tent of bev­er­ages and snacks, and man­ag­ing the fat and sodi­um con­tent. There are cer­tain items that will be pro­hib­it­ed be­cause we are very con­cerned about the wel­fare and the health of our chil­dren. We stand on the prin­ci­ple that a healthy body con­tributes to a healthy mind, and for all stu­dents,” McKel­lar said.

Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram wel­comed the move, cit­ing es­ca­lat­ing rates of NCDs and the strain they place on the pub­lic health sec­tor.

The com­mit­tee al­so heard that the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion (SSSD) con­tin­ues to face crit­i­cal staffing short­ages. McKel­lar said the min­istry’s Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment Di­vi­sion has been man­dat­ed to ag­gres­sive­ly pur­sue re­cruit­ment, as most pro­fes­sion­al and tech­ni­cal po­si­tions are con­tract posts that do not fall un­der the Ser­vice Com­mis­sions De­part­ment. It is there­fore the HR Di­vi­sion’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to ad­ver­tise, re­cruit and fill those va­can­cies.

How­ev­er, the main chal­lenge re­mains ex­pe­ri­ence. SSSD Man­ag­er Dr Ayin­ka Nurse-Car­ring­ton said that over the last three years, in­ter­vie­wees were well-ground­ed in the­o­ry but lacked un­der­stand­ing of the school en­vi­ron­ment and the re­al­i­ties of work­ing with spe­cial-needs stu­dents or chil­dren and par­ents from vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties. She said some new re­cruits leave al­most im­me­di­ate­ly be­cause they can­not cope with the de­mands.

“We have had con­ver­sa­tions not on­ly with the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, COSTAATT and USC, be­cause they would send practicum stu­dents to us so they get the over­all ex­pe­ri­ence. We have had that type of con­ver­sa­tion to help them un­der­stand the nav­i­ga­tion of the school en­vi­ron­ment and deal­ing with dif­fer­ent types of par­ents,” Car­ring­ton said.

Car­ring­ton said the min­istry con­tin­ues to work close­ly with uni­ver­si­ties to stream­line train­ing so that grad­u­ates are bet­ter pre­pared for the needs of the SSSD.