Cudjoe slams teachers

Prof Selwyn Cudjoe yesterday criticised slack teachers as he addressed the graduation ceremony of Holy Saviour Anglican School in Curepe. Apparently referring to teachers who stayed away from school for two days for “rest and reflection,” Cudjoe began by dubbing TTUTA as “Gimme, gimme, gimme!” He hit the protest action as he urged pupils to instead develop civic virtue whereby they would be conscientious citizens who always put country first. Cudjoe then attacked those teachers who individually slacked off their teaching jobs. “The absenteeism rate here is ludicrous,” he stormed, while noting the huge amount of holidays teachers received. Noting some teachers slacked off or ducked out of school when they knew the headteacher was not watching, he said: “Those are the actions of slaves.” 

He slammed both TTUTA and the Ministry of Education for both failing to send representatives to the graduation although they were listed on the programme. Lamenting these absences as a bad example to pupils, he mused: “So how can you teach students about responsibility?” Noting the Government over the past ten years had spent $16 billion on education, with $2.49 billion in the last national Budget, Cudjoe said: “If we spend so much, why can’t our children read, write and spell?” Cudjoe answered queries over whether the Central Bank of which he was a director usually paid for his airfare from Wellesley College (USA) to Trinidad to attend Board meetings. Noting that the Government said that he received only the same benefits that any director was entitled to, Cudjoe remarked: “The money I get paid cannot even pay my passage back and forth.”