Rhondor Dowlat
In a bid to avoid discrimination of parents and their children with regards to who gets admitted into which of the primary schools in T&T, the Ministry of Education has standardised its registration forms.
This was one of two main concerns addressed by Education Minister Anthony Garcia during a media conference held at the ministry’s headquarters at St Vincent Street, in Port-of-Spain.
Garcia assured that the forms, which will be sent soon to all district offices and emailed to all schools, will outline the process that must be followed in terms of admission of students.
He, however, noted that the form is not an admission form but a registration form.
He said, “From this, the principal will be able to capture the data that is necessary to assist in admitting students. We found in the past some schools decided to develop their own forms and in some of these forms, there were certain requirements of parents which in our view lent themselves to discrimination.”
“Because things like the income of a parent, the income of person who recommended the child, the job that some these persons held…some of these things were put on the forms and that was a form of discrimination and we found that we needed to standardise the form so that there will be no accusation of discrimination,” he added.
Garcia said children, on reaching the age of five years, would be allowed to be registered and not younger. He also noted that the child will be placed in schools within a 3 km range of their respective homes.
In the second issue, Garcia announced the introduction of a staff job letter application system online, which he said, will save time, especially to teachers.
The system, which was developed by the ministry’s ICT Division, consists of secure, online forms and automated approval flows that allows all classifications of the ministry’s staff to request job and embassy letters via the ministry’s website and intranet.
He said positive discussions are, however, still ongoing with Embassies’ officials.