Teachers are made scapegoats

THE EDITOR: By virtually blaming teachers last Wednesday for the upsurge in delinquent behaviour among secondary school students, Hazel Manning was telling the country that she has run out of ideas and has failed in her ministerial portfolio as Education Minister. Mrs Manning has now joined the long list of Ministers including Adesh Nanan, Kamla Persad-Bissessar and former prime minister Basdeo Panday who level blame on the nation’s teachers without honestly trying to understand the needs of students and teachers and facilitating the satisfaction of those needs.

A few months ago Mrs Manning blamed Carnival for student violence, now that Carnival is over and the problem is persisting she is claiming that teacher absenteeism is the cause. Teachers are entitled to 14 days casual and 14 days sick leave as all other public officers. Any absence beyond that is most often likely due to protracted illness. While using teachers as scapegoats, Mrs Manning’s ministry is creating mini-prison-like Alcatraz surroundings at junior and secondary schools. At the Mucurapo, Curepe and Aranguez Junior Secondary schools, high walls have now been erected crowned with razor wire. If teachers were causing the problem in schools then why these added security measures? Further to this, plain clothes “safety officers” now form part of the staff at the Morvant Comprehensive and Mucurapo Junior Secondary schools.

The solution to the spate of violent behaviour among the nation’s school population lies in the training and recruitment of teachers who are academically, psychologically and spiritually balanced. At present people leave university with a degree and are employed as teachers. So too, workers in the public service transfer to teaching because of supposedly higher salaries. The NAR is calling for the reintroduction of the on-the-job training programme for the grooming of teachers before full entry into the teaching service. This worked admirably from 1986 to 1991 when the NAR was in office. Many of our quality primary school teachers have come through that system.

At the secondary level university graduates desirous of entering the teaching service should be made to do the one-year Diploma in Education before acceptance in the service. The power of the teacher has been totally stripped away by succeeding Ministers of Education to the point where students, more often than not, controlled things in the classroom.  A measured system of corporal punishment must form part of the reclamation of the nation’s schools from outright delinquency.

Many of the students engaging in violent behaviour are in total limbo in the classrooms as they have come from the primary school ill-equipped to function in a highly academic system that junior secondary and comprehensive schools operate at. The ministry needs to be realistic and design relevant curricula for these students. It may even entail separate school buildings for these students — which the country can afford. Youth detention centres will soon rival adult prisons in numbers if fearless, proven measures like these are not taken.

JEROME CHAITAN
Public Relations and Communications Officer
National Alliance for Reconstruction