The school system lacks proper management

Sep 23, 2008 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
This month has been designated Education Month and the theme is Educating The Child – A Parent/Teacher Responsibility. Sounds beautiful but does it apply? And what about the responsibility of the Ministry and the Minister of Education?

It did when I was a student in both primary and high schools – those were the days. I will focus on the East Canje District but I am sure it applies elsewhere.

Those were the days when teachers took pride in teaching; when a teacher who was teaching common entrance class would spend a lot of time with his/her students because that teacher wanted a lot of ‘passes’.

Those were the days when PTA meetings were frequent and there were interactions between teachers and parents that were always very fruitful.

Those were the days when Scheme of Work and Notes of Lessons were checked weekly and everyday respectively, and visits of education officers were very frequent and almost feared by teachers. What do we have in our schools today?

Let’s take a look. We have primary school students who go to school with book bags that could easily give an adult hernia.

Some of these students, whose parents could afford it, go to lessons from as early as 6am until 8am and then they go to classes and when that is over the same students go to lessons again from 4pm to 6pm or 7 pm. One wonders why all this extra lessons.

Well let me tell you why. It is because teachers say that (and perhaps it is true) they can’t finish the syllabuses within the regular school day. I wonder if the Minister, when he declared September, “Education Month” even gave a thought to all of this?

Or is it not something he should be concerned about? Perhaps attention should be given to the children who cannot afford to pay for all this extra lessons.

Oh, I forgot. The Honourable Minister has given it some thought. He has declared that school buildings should not be used for the purpose of giving extra lessons (unless it is free).

If the syllabuses can’t be completed within the school day then something is wrong somewhere. Have we looked to see what is wrong?

By preventing teachers from using school buildings it means that children have to move from the school to another location for the needed extra lessons (especially for Common Entrance). Sir, that means additional cost to get to that other location.

I would like to ask this very concerned Minister to pay a visit to the East Canje district and watch the children as they try to get an education.

Look to see how parents struggle to provide for them and then think of what Ministry officials can do to show ‘responsibility’.

While I am on the school system let us take a quick look at the relatively new phenomenon of first year children taking their own desk/seat to school.

“State of the Art” buildings is the term used by Government officials when they go abroad and talk about the new schools – I spoke to a senior board member of a secondary school in Berbice and he did his best to justify this practice.

Now let us do some maths. Let us say that 60 new students enter the school and they take their seats to school. At the same time 60 will leave after CXC and they do not take their seats with them.

This process is repeated every year. Should we now not look to building a store room for all this extra furniture that the schools should have? No way. We still need to burden parents with finding an additional $6,000 or $7,000 to buy new “seats”.

I will tell you why all of the above is happening and still our students can’t even prepare a proper CV or present themselves on paper in proper English (not all but very many of them). Lack of proper management. From the Minister down to the cleaning lady.

If there is proper supervision almost all of these defects (and they are defects) can be remedied. As a matter of fact, with proper management this whole country would be a better place to live in.
Charrandass Persaud
Attorney-at-law

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