CBTT: Bad management leading to student indiscipline

The failure of the Ministry of Education to deal with the problems at the Arima Comprehensive School  is a clear indication of bad and inefficient management. This,  from head of the non-governmental organisation Citizens for a Better Trinidad and Tobago (CBTT) Harrack Balramsingh, who said that mismanagement and irregularities along with school violence and indiscipline have become the order of the day. “A principal cannot claim to be effective when the majority of teachers in the school are at loggerheads with him or her,” he said in press statement.

As a result, “the situation will get worse if we continue to fail to put drastic measures in place to deal with the escalating problems in the nation’s schools.” What is happening at the Arima Senior Comprehensive School is unfortunate because students are being affected, he noted.  “When the majority of teachers in a school are disenchanted with the administration, the institution suffers especially in the area of discipline.” He advised that an independent committee be appointed to investigate mismanagement and other wrongdoing in schools. 

“Too many times the problems are swept under the carpet and no investigations done.” Balramsingh stated one cannot have inefficient administrators running the nation’s  school, adding, “Some principals feel the school is their’s, so they don’t have to account to anyone for their actions.” He wondered why there was a delay in implementing boards of education in all schools in order to help manage the public schools. He said that many teachers suffer in silence and feared reprisals, if they complain about  mismanagement and lack of transparency in their schools.