Importance of history

The statement given by Minister of Education, Senator Hazel Manning, that core subjects History and Geography would not be dropped from the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) list would normally have been welcome. However, Minister Manning has qualified her statement when she said that “as a matter of fact, we are going to put History in Visual Arts, in Social Studies and other subjects, so that it will be expanded.” Unfortunately, Mrs Manning rather than allay the genuine fears of students may have simply aggravated them. Young people today are demanding to know more of their history, where they came from, the struggles and disappointments of their forbears. We have seen this increasingly, in the importance to persons of Indian descent of Indian Arrival Day; to persons of African descent of Emancipation Day and African Liberation Day and to Caribs, of Santa Rosa.

It is only a few decades ago that what was then referred to as West Indian History (Caribbean History) ran an uncomfortable third in secondary schools in Trinidad and Tobago to British and European History. And while the average student five or six decades ago could rattle off wholly irrelevant dates and events of British History, for example that the Battle of Hastings had been fought in 1066, he or she knew almost nothing about the Haitian Revolution. In turn, the student of the 1940s and 1950s was not exposed to in depth studies of Caribbean history, or the history of India and Africa, lands from whence the ancestors of the bulk of Trinidadians and Tobagonians had come. Such history was downplayed, and the misinformation which passed in schools for Indian and African history contributed in some measure to low self esteem.

In turn, Caribbean History had been treated merely as an extension of British or European History. Yet, without the need to be overly sentimental, the Indian Sub-Continent, the African Continent, China and the Caribbean islands and its peoples are rich in history, and had much to be proud of. You cannot submerge all of the accumulated bits and pieces of history, which had evolved over hundreds and even thousands of years in say, Visual Arts and Social Studies. The Education Minister has urged persons not to spread rumours, but to wait until her Ministry should publish correspondence. There are serious Sixth Form students of Caribbean History, who, briefed by the authorities, are concerned at what they see as a plan to have History merely as a part of Social Studies. These students, and indeed the country, need to be told in clear, unequivocal language that History, specifically Caribbean History, will remain on the CXC subject list for secondary schools, as a separate subject. We should not have to remind the Minister or Cabinet of the importance of History.