Hazel Manning: Children are hurting

TOO many students attending Schools in the country are ending up on the wrong side of the law and what  in fact is happening “is that they are hurting,” according to Senator Hazel Manning, Minister of Education The minister was addressing the 26th Anniversary celebrations of the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers’ Association (TTUTA) at the time when she said that as “ professionals teachers are expected to be flexible and creative and to combine their unique skills and talents to shape the nation’s human capital.

Minister Manning stressed that “our children are hurting because teachers say unkind things to them and also when they discriminate sometimes indirectly and oftimes without finesse.” The minister said that the ministry’s attention must be drawn to students who did not attend school regularly, She said, “We want to find them, to find out why they are not in school, and to help them find their way back.”

Manning felt that teachers should keep focus “in developing a leadership role and breathe a new spirit in our schools.” Manning said that the Ministry’s goal is “quality in the delivery of instruction and supporting educational services and we must not be daunted in the process of delivering quality.” She said that by 2007, deshifting and conversion of Junior Secondary Schools to Five Year Schools would be completed. Carapichaima, Siparia, Arima and Pleasantville “are to be made Seven Year Schools.”