Every board of ed­u­ca­tion and every school in the coun­try must reg­u­lar­ly re­view their per­for­mance. All as­pects of school and com­mu­ni­ty life, and the ben­e­fits and im­pact they pro­vide to key stake­hold­ers and so­ci­ety as a whole, must be eval­u­at­ed.

While sig­nif­i­cant em­pha­sis must be placed on ex­am­i­na­tion suc­cess at the SEA, CSEC and CAPE lev­els, these are not the on­ly de­ter­mi­nants of the over­all suc­cess of a school. In fact, the best mea­sure­ment im­ple­ment­ed cur­rent­ly is the align­ment of school per­for­mance with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s vi­sion for the child.

Per­for­mance mea­sure­ment and in­di­ca­tors must be con­sid­ered in the con­text of the val­ue out­comes achieved at the lev­el of each school. It is pos­si­ble to con­ceal the fail­ure of one or a few schools in any gen­er­al analy­sis; there­fore, it is nec­es­sary to re­view the per­for­mance of every school sep­a­rate­ly.

The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS), as a key part­ner in the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, has been eval­u­at­ing the per­for­mance of its schools’ over­all re­sults in all di­men­sions, as well as the lead­er­ship and teach­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ty and ca­pac­i­ty. To mea­sure the ef­fi­cien­cy and ef­fec­tive­ness of all its schools, the SDMS lead­er­ship keeps a tight rein on what hap­pens at these schools. The SDMS is hard­ly ever caught by sur­prise by any event or in­ci­dent at any of its schools.

The SDMS has a well-de­fined process of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and re­sponse with its schools and has cre­at­ed sys­tems of ac­count­abil­i­ty – ex­am sup­port, fi­nan­cial and in­fra­struc­ture man­age­ment etc. by which teach­ers and ad­min­is­tra­tors are mea­sured.

With such a lev­el of over­sight, it is easy to keep a close watch on the per­for­mance of its schools. The SDMS is hard­ly ever re­quired to ex­er­cise dras­tic ac­tion at its schools. What is the over­all con­se­quence of this type of lead­er­ship and man­age­ment? The ev­i­dence is there for the na­tion to note.

Since the con­struc­tion of the first of its “cow sheds in 1952,” the SDMS schools have made an in­deli­ble im­print on the na­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem. Its pri­ma­ry schools have re­peat­ed­ly demon­strat­ed lev­els of ex­cel­lence and high aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance.

The vast ma­jor­i­ty of our schools are well above the av­er­age aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance in­dex used by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to mea­sure ex­am per­for­mance. Our 43 pri­ma­ry schools have col­lec­tive­ly placed SDMS schools as the best-per­form­ing ed­u­ca­tion achiev­ers.

A few of our col­leagues have a lim­it­ed num­ber of schools that per­form with ex­cel­lence, but when one con­sid­ers the per­for­mance of 43 schools as a group, the SDMS schools stand out.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the in­clu­sion of re­li­gion and cul­ture as an every­day em­pha­sis in school life en­sures that stu­dents are well guid­ed and dis­ci­plined.

The Baal Vikaas Fes­ti­val has proved to be al­most 40 years ahead of its time. The Ed­u­ca­tion Board of the SDMS pa­tient­ly awaits the rein­tro­duc­tion of the Con­tin­u­ous As­sess­ment Com­po­nent (CAC) in the aca­d­e­m­ic year 2026-2027. Par­ents play a ma­jor role in the life of our schools and make an im­mense con­tri­bu­tion.

The SEA suc­cess of pri­ma­ry schools is known through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go. In 2024, two stu­dents tied for first and in 2026, three stu­dents tied for first place.

At the sec­ondary lev­el, our five schools have made an in­valu­able con­tri­bu­tion to the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem and the na­tion.

The suc­cess of the Lak­sh­mi Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege is well-known through­out the Caribbean. The oth­er four sec­ondary schools have shown what qual­i­ty ef­fort and dili­gence can achieve. The Vish­nu and Shi­va Boys’, as well as the Saraswatie and Par­vati Girls’, have be­come an ed­u­ca­tion­al force. Es­tab­lished bare­ly 25 years ago, these SDMS schools have be­come first-choice schools.

The les­son of these schools is pow­er­ful­ly in­struc­tive. The Vish­nu Boys’ start­ed in the con­demned Ca­roni Po­lice Sta­tion, a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, two miles away and an an­nex to the Ca­roni Hin­du Pri­ma­ry. The oth­er schools start­ed in tem­po­rary struc­tures. None of these schools was ever closed for any so-called ‘health’ rea­sons. The T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion had no in­flu­ence or pow­er over those cow­sheds.

These schools ac­cept stu­dents with av­er­age marks, yet make suc­cess­es out of them. In 2026, Saraswati Girls’ Col­lege had 100% of stu­dents at­tain­ing five or more sub­jects at CSEC. Shi­va Boys’ and Vish­nu Boys’ have won CAPE schol­ar­ships al­ready.

The per­for­mances of these new SDMS schools demon­strate what com­mit­ment and love for ed­u­ca­tion can achieve. Our schools have demon­strat­ed that you do not need ho­tel-style schools that are char­ac­terised by con­stant shut­downs and poor per­for­mance.