Let’s help the uneducated

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO must adopt a novel approach to education if it is to remain economically viable, said President George Maxwell Richards. Speaking at the San Juan Business Association 14th Annual Dinner held at the Himalaya Club, Barataria, on Saturday night, the Head of State declared that the re-installation of quality learning in schools must be a priority, not only by government, but the private sector and citizens on the whole. President Richards said: “Today’s new economies are pushing a larger proportion of the uneducated, undereducated and unskilled into unemployment. At the same time shortages of skilled workers are holding up economic growth. “There is a dearth of adequate supplies of properly trained and technically qualified manpower.”

He said the present workforce is insufficiently educated and trained to do the new jobs which are becoming available, and called on the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the soon-to-be-established University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) to provide shorter term programmes for specific purposes, to a wider variety of students. This he said should be done using a novel delivery system. His Excellency said this country needed to restore its former quality of its education system at all levels. President Richards told the gathering of business professionals: “To suggest that we are providing the same quality in our teaching as we did fifty or sixty years ago is not accurate. “For example, those of you who were students in the 1950s and 60s received an education of higher quality than do your sons and daughters today. This must disturb each one of us.”

He attributed the present deterioration in education to greatly increased class sizes, limited opportunities for creative responses from students, outdated laboratories, more instruction by part-time lecturers, along with greatly reduced provision for interaction with experienced teachers and mentors. He decried these measures which he believes have led to more depersonalised education, which exemplified the problems being experienced nationally. The former Principal of the UWI, St Augustine Campus said: “Coupled with this are deteriorating physical plants and other outdated support facilities. “The reinstatement of quality in our secondary and tertiary systems is, without question, the number one challenge.” President Richards said governments everywhere are investing much more time, effort and money in the business of learning, and through the effort of educating and training their work forces, they were able to create and attract high-value jobs and increase their competitiveness.