Focus must be on education

THE EDITOR: If the PNM is really serious about education being a major focus of policy, they will have to show action on several fronts: more state schools; state funds for state schools, not religious schools.

Democracy implies the separation of state and church. Moreover, religion is the major divisive factor in the world today; greater resources for pupils and teachers; reform of the present examination system. This is merely a device to sort students into arbitrary categories of “ability” at arbitrary points of time.

Our focus must be on educating each child to the limit of its ability, not on seeing who can tolerate anxiety best at a given point in time in a formal setting. A related focus must be to use educational assessments primarily as diagnostic measures: to determine what help (opportunities and resources) students need to improve; to determine what understandings of students’ cognitive, emotional social, and physical development teachers need to improve their teaching. The relationship between teacher and pupil is dynamic, interactive, and personal; it is not one where pupils are the empty vessels into which teachers pour their knowledge or stupidity.

It follows that the school (teachers) should play a greater part in assessing the educational performance of their pupils/students, not external and formal examinations. The emphasis must be on teaching and student learning in the classroom, not on exams in a formal setting; and good teaching really means helping pupils/students to learn. Our concept of school education must also include technical education and business studies. It is these that underpin the entrepreneurial base of successful modern societies. All economies involve the production and distribution of needed goods and services.

The opportunity to provide these goods and services is essential for eliminating the dependence of the individual on government and for creating wealth in our society (which is why the kidnapping of members from the entrepreneurial class should be viewed as a major crime — 25 to 30 years hard labour). It is technical skills that earn high wages in industrialised countries. Students must be given the opportunity to acquire these skills. (PS The ability to make rotis has made one Trini a millionaire in New York! I still can’t make a good roti.) There must be teaching skills and resources available to deal with the learning disabilities that many students face.

All students are equal in importance, with or without disability. Compassion on the part of teachers, and their patient and unremitting encouragement (not insults or humiliation) of these students will pay great dividends as well as gratitude from the student and his/her parents. (Einstein was considered a dud in algebra; and Tom Cruise (like many others) is dyslexic.) Adult/further education must be freely available to remediate or continue the learning process, and education must be extended to our prisons.

Illiterate prisoners have no meaningful future in a knowledge-based society. Literacy, numeracy, and technical skills must be provided as far as our resources permit. Hopefully, this might reduce our crime rate. As Jean-Paul Sartre, the French philosopher, says “There is no love apart from deeds of love”. So let’s have some action, PNM!

KENNETH AQUAN-ASSEE
Maraval