WORTHY OF PRAISE

The decision of a student of a Junior Secondary School to voluntarily hand over a packet of marijuana to his class teacher is worthy of commendation. So, too, were the workshops, a Pre-Carnival Preparation Programme organised by the Guidance Unit of the Education Ministry as part of its Project Peace, which was conducted in 55 specially selected schools. We suggest that workshops be continued to be conducted in the various schools, and expanded to include yet other schools. The handing over of the marijuana, while it was the act of an individual, might be a breakthrough, however small.

The student from the unnamed school was reported in last Friday’s (February 20) issue of Newsday as telling his class teacher: “I don’t want that kind of life anymore.” It took courage on the part of the youngster, who may have risked ridicule from the unconverted. What he did should not be regarded or dismissed as an isolated action. Instead, what he has done should be held up as exemplary. All too often, the society wearied by the growing indiscipline and violence in all too many of the country’s schools within recent years has tended to focus on the negatives. Meanwhile several positives, along with the student’s handing over of the packet of marijuana, have emerged from the Ministry of Education’s programme through which youngsters are encouraged to develop conflict resolution skills. A plus is that several of the students in the various schools under the programme have not only discussed their problems with workshop presenters, but have sought help in dealing with their problems.

The workshop presenters sought to show the teenaged students that there were alternative methods of handling issues such as drugs, alcohol, sexual immorality, stealing and fighting. And because it was a Pre-Carnival Preparation Programme, the presenters sought to assist the schoolchildren in making informed choices for the Carnival Season and how to avoid some of the pitfalls. A measure of the impact of the programme can be readily seen in its expansion, which was not done through bureaucratic whim, but as a result of what has been described as the overwhelming demand by schools which were not involved originally in the project now in its second year. As a result, the series of workshops which had been conducted in 23 specially selected schools last year was expanded to 55 schools this year because of the stated demand. Hopefully, it will be further increased next year to deal with the vexing problems which it should be clearly understood plague not simply Trinidad and Tobago schools, but are an uncomfortable world wide phenomenon.