Education Ministry giving keen attention to HFLE

Jan 20, 2015 News

– as moves afoot to address violence in the school system

Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand

Keen attention is being directed to Health and Family Life Education (HFLE) in the public school system. This was the assertion of Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, who, on Friday, spoke of plans to meet with officials who constitute her Ministry’s HFLE team.
But although the HFLE programme had been in place for a number of years, the Education Minister intimated, during a press conference last week that it has not yet been introduced to all of the country’s schools, though its existence may be evident in most.
As part of efforts to ensure that there is even more evidence of the HFLE programme, Manickchand said that discussions at Friday’s meeting, intended to “look at whether we are effective, whether we need to concentrate on specific areas that may be problematic for us.”
The HFLE programme was an offshoot of intense collaboration between the Ministries of Education, Health and Human Services with input from international children’s organisations including the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
HFLE in the school system has a focus on life skills and health teaching in the curriculum. Moreover, HFLE is said to be a life skills programme for youth which focuses on knowledge and skills development for the whole person.
“This (HFLE) is something we are looking at,” insisted the Education Minister as she turned her focused attention to the issue of violence in the school system.
But according to the Minister, addressing such issues is not something that the Ministry can do in isolation. “It cannot be done at the school alone, it simply cannot be done…It has to be a nation standing up together and saying we are not going to tolerate violence from our children. We are not going to be tolerating a parent running into a school to hit a parent; it has to be something that is condemned by all.”
“It is something that we have to come around to as a nation, that our behaviour is hampering and harming our children’s successful growth…it is something we have to deal with at the level of the school, but I am saying now with confidence that school alone is not going to be able to fix this,” said Manickchand.

Chief Education Officer, Olato Sam

The Minister’s sentiments were recently mirrored by Chief Education Officer, Olato Sam.
The absence of Social Workers in the school system has been listed, in some factions, as a major shortcoming when the issue of violence in the school system is considered.
There are some who are of the firm belief that these professionals could in fact, help to appease such situations simply by their presence in schools.
But according to Sam, while the Ministry has been putting certain measures in place, there are some prevailing patterns that suggest that the violence that might be appearing in our schools cannot be addressed by the school alone.
“We are by no means singularly able to fully address these,” said Sam as he pointed out that “this has to really envelop a very comprehensive multi-sectoral approach to getting it right.”
“I can’t say today…that we have devised that plan of action yet but I think there is certainly a need for it. It is not the first time that it would have been placed on the table, we have discussed this before but I think specific actions now have to be taken in making that a reality,” said Sam as he spoke of the need for related agencies to come together and begin to find solutions to some of the problems that manifest in the school system.
“If we really want to tackle the issue of violence in our schools we have to look at a more broad-based approach,” Sam said. He made reference to the fact that some of the root causes of deviant behaviours in the society have strong linkages to some of the realities that have direct bearing on some of the broader social dynamics in the local society.
He is convinced that these “require initiatives that look at the perpetration of violence in general in our country and what we are going to do to stem that.”
Although there are some arguments that the violent behaviours portrayed by children in the school are learnt at home and should be addressed at that level first, Sam contended, “There is no one component because the failings of the homes should be compensated for in the community, in the school, other social agencies or community development groups, or non-governmental organisations.
“That is why we cannot, in my opinion, put our finger in one component of this broader social issue and say this is where we tackle it effectively,” asserted the Chief Education Officer.
He therefore amplified the need for attention to be given to “each dimension of this bigger problem.”
He conceded that there is a serious role for the Education Ministry to play in order to ensure that the schools are safe and productive environments.
This, he said, is to ensure that when teachers and students are involved in the educational process, they are not distracted by deviant behaviours.