Part 1
Father of the PNM Dr Eric Williams, while addressing thousands of school children at an Independence Day rally at the Queen’s Park Oval on August 30, 1962, advised the children, “Your future lies in your bookbag.” Today, as we enter the New Year 2016, Dr Eric Williams, if he were alive will be shocked to know that our children are attending schools with half-empty bookbags.
If T&T had hoped for a positive change in the governance style of the current incarnation of the PNM, then the result has already become clear. The PNM is hopeless day after day. What is most annoying is the nature of pronouncements on key issues in an arbitrary manner.
Ministers are announcing radical changes in their ministries without care for any advice from the stakeholders. For all the PNM’s talk about consultation, the evidence to date is clearly contradictory. Imbert, Deyalsingh, Garcia et al simply announce actions that will have serious repercussions and consequences.
The recent statements by the minister of education have added fuel to an inflammatory issue. This minister needs to understand the realities of his job, and what is required to perform it. After principals and teachers waited for four months to receive textbooks for the academic year 2015–2016, the minister has disappoint all by thoughtless and uncaring decisions.
As a key stakeholder in education at the ECCE, primary and secondary levels, the SDMS have been aware that schools were told that books would be procured for a three-year period commencing September 2015.
Everyone in education is aware that the textbooks provided to students generally have a life circle of three years because of constant use over the years by three different users. Minister Garcia said (TG 30/12/15): “People are making assertions that children will be unable to access textbooks but that isn’t true. There are textbooks in the schools that are available to all students.” He further said: “In 2015 there should have been a complete renewal but Cabinet took a decision that this is not something we will be doing.”
Did Cabinet have an understanding of all the issues involved in almost scrapping the provisions of textbooks to the nation’s children? Was the minister sufficiently informed to ensure Cabinet took the right decision? Was the decision really necessary as a result of challenging times?
Perhaps the minister has not taken time to learn what is happening in his ministry. He tells the public that textbooks will be shifted from schools with an oversupply to schools with a deficit.
This is a nonsensical statement. Principals, teachers and parents are well aware that different schools selected different textbooks according to the needs of their student. As such, there is a diversity of textbooks and simply transferring textbooks is not a solution.
The situation will arise where different textbooks are accessed in the same class. But a larger issue arises in relation to the priority of this government. Consider that there are over 250,000 students of all levels of the education system who benefit from the provision of textbooks.
And consider further that for the benefit of over 20 per cent of the population an expenditure of $138 million out of a budget of $64 billion is less than half of one per cent. And consider, finally, the warped value and misplaced priority of this government.
Examine the contrast between provisions of $138 million for the education of a quarter million citizens as opposed to the provision of $270 million for the benefit of 20,000 citizens to engage in wild sexual behaviours and unplanned pregnancies at every Carnival.
If there were truly to be budget slashing, it has to be the $270 million and not $138 million.
Additionally, it may not be too far-fetched to see the outcome of a similar agenda to decimate the top performing schools in the country through deprivation of quality textbooks. International literature and research in education have made clear the great importance of quality teachers and quality textbooks for educational improvement and advancement. The Opposition is right to describe this action as backward and atrocious, and to note that the Government can “reprioritise and make their budget cuts elsewhere, since they have taken enough from our children.”
The Opposition also correctly notes that: “It is a serious indication that this measure comes at a time when the ability of parents and guardians to purchase textbooks would be constrained due to the rise in cost of living triggered by the government actions…” (Express 30/12/15).
Parents will be punished severely by this action, especially those with several children at school. The deprivation of textbooks aligned to the curriculum will surely contribute to a reversal of achievement levels, and a reversal of the last three years of continued improvements at SEA, CSEC and CAPE.
A thought must also be spared for the book publishers and book stores that would have invested heavily financially to ensure the availability of quality books for the period 2015-2016.
They will suffer grave financial losses and become indebted to financial investors. This massive injustice to education must be reversed immediately.
