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Tuesday, June 17, 2025

Stakeholders agree secondary school system needs revamp

by

Akash Samroo
746 days ago
20230601

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s crit­i­cism of this coun­try’s ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem is wel­come news for both teach­ers and par­ents.

Speak­ing at the Break­fast with Dr Kei­th Row­ley at the Hilton Trinidad on Wednes­day, the PM blamed au­to­mat­ic pro­mo­tion to sec­ondary school for thrust­ing un­pre­pared stu­dents in­to a sys­tem where they can­not cope with the cur­ricu­lum. He added that this in­evitably leads to some be­com­ing dis­in­ter­est­ed in ed­u­ca­tion and in­stead turn­ing to a life of crime.

Com­ment­ing on this yes­ter­day, T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin said it was about time the Prime Min­is­ter ac­knowl­edged that the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem is bro­ken. Lum Kin said they had pub­licly called on pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ments to en­gage in a na­tion­al dis­cus­sion on this mat­ter.

“We con­tin­ue to fos­ter a colo­nial ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem that pro­motes elit­ist ideals, which con­demns some of our chil­dren to fail­ure and which nei­ther caters to the needs of some of our chil­dren nor the na­tion as a whole,” Lum Kin said.

One of the ma­jor is­sues, he said, is that teach­ers are not trained to deal with the needs of stu­dents who are not mo­ti­vat­ed through con­ven­tion­al means of ed­u­ca­tion.

“The fact that we pro­mote func­tion­al­ly il­lit­er­ate stu­dents through­out the pri­ma­ry sys­tem and then to the sec­ondary sys­tem, is a re­sult of the lack of ad­e­quate re­sources at the schools, trained and qual­i­fied pro­fes­sion­als who can ren­der mean­ing­ful in­ter­ven­tions at the ear­li­est op­por­tu­ni­ty. Teach­ers are not equipped to di­ag­nose and re­me­di­ate the var­i­ous as­pects of learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties or psy­cho­log­i­cal/so­cial is­sues af­fect­ing our stu­dents.”

Like­wise, Na­tion­al Par­ent Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) pres­i­dent Kevin David said the is­sue raised by the Prime Min­is­ter has been on their radar for quite some time.

David told Guardian Me­dia, “While we ac­knowl­edge the work we would have done with the im­ple­men­ta­tion of af­ter-school cen­tres, and oth­er sup­port­ing mech­a­nisms to help bridge that gap for our stu­dents and the work of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and oth­er stake­hold­ers in ed­u­ca­tion, there is a need for com­pre­hen­sive re­form that tran­scends mere re­me­di­al mea­sures.”

David added that their vi­sion must en­com­pass an ed­u­ca­tion­al land­scape that pro­motes a pas­sion for learn­ing and crit­i­cal think­ing.

But Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly yes­ter­day told Guardian Me­dia that moves are al­ready in place to ad­dress some of the short­falls iden­ti­fied by the Prime Min­is­ter.

When asked what is be­ing done for those who are strug­gling to grasp aca­d­e­m­ic ma­te­r­i­al, Min­is­ter Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “Cur­rent­ly, stu­dents un­der the age of 13 who score un­der 30 per cent are made to re-sit SEA, and stu­dents can al­so de­fer tak­ing the SEA, once they are be­low the age of 13.

“In a few cas­es each year, some stu­dents are seam­less­ly placed at vo­ca­tion­al schools, ie, with­out ex­am­i­na­tion, where the chances of suc­cess are very slim, and the par­ent agrees to this arrange­ment. In ad­di­tion, stu­dents are placed at vo­ca­tion­al cen­tres through the SEA process.”

How­ev­er, she said to deal with the larg­er is­sue of stu­dent achieve­ment in the aca­d­e­m­ic year 2022/2023, the min­istry start­ed a re­me­di­al pro­gramme called “Re-en­gag­ing for Suc­cess.” This was pi­lot­ed in 106 schools, 80 pri­ma­ry and 26 sec­ondary in­sti­tu­tions.

“The var­ied ini­tia­tives un­der that pro­gramme tar­get the stu­dents who need ad­di­tion­al sup­port and prepa­ra­tion for sec­ondary school, as well as the stu­dents who were placed in sec­ondary schools and need sup­port there to achieve suc­cess in cer­ti­fi­ca­tion,” the Min­is­ter ex­plained.

Go­ing for­ward, Gads­by-Dol­ly added that it is her in­ten­tion to ex­tend the pro­gramme for at least five more years.

“The im­ple­men­ta­tion of the pro­gramme was ap­proved for one year, but to make any mea­sur­able im­pact, it needs to be in­sti­tut­ed over the course of at least five years. There­fore, ap­proval is go­ing to be sought for a longer pe­ri­od of im­ple­men­ta­tion. The aim is to sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­crease the prepa­ra­tion of our pri­ma­ry school stu­dents for sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion.”


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