In defence of Garcia

At the most recent of his many press conferences since losing office, Gopeesingh insinuated that since Education Minister Anthony Garcia was a woodwork teacher he couldn’t be a good minister of education. Of course, this was more a condemnation of himself than the current minister.

But class is class. Garcia never once indicated that the education system was left in such a mess because it was run by a gynaecologist who didn’t know his toe from his knee when it came to education.

Besides the goodly doctor though, many other non-educators have been offering prescriptions, which unfortunately either reek of ageism or sound as if reality is not a concern.

One commentator suggested that students should not be suspended because when they are, the parents are “burdened” to make arrangements for their children’s out of school hours.

How is it a “burden” when parents have to look after their own children? Maybe if a little more care is taken with parenting, these children will not now be a “burden” to their own parents.

This same commentator suggested that instead of suspension children should be made to clean up school grounds, paint walls, and scrub washrooms. In the first place, what washrooms? In our schools we have toilets, plain and simple. And which principal or supervisor or minister of education will be so “farse” as to ask people’s children — bully or not — to come in and clean toilets? The schools will get so many pre-action protocol letters they will be spinning for the rest of the decade and those who don’t spin will be suspended by the Teaching Service Commission.

Another contributor writing in the Express has all the answers.

She is certain that the education system is failing because of mass training of teachers, an over-burdened and ancient education system and tired and burnt-out teachers. Did all of this happen during the last 18 months? In fact, it is the current minister who took away some of the “over-burdening” that Gopeesingh had imposed on the system.

I think the Express contributor forgot to advise the previous minister.

Quite recently one of Newsday’s esteemed commentators made some disappointing comments.

Apart from the fact that Sharda Patasar’s ignorance of the ministry’s policies with regard to the handling of violence and indiscipline in school was obvious when she recommended to the ministry its own policy, already in place, her comments reeked of ageism.

The young woman used her piece to pour scorn on the less youthful members of our society, among them the minister of education who, according to her, sat in windowless rooms probably suffering from senility.

I am just one not-so-young citizen who holds many degrees and who still contributes meaningfully to our nation. I felt let down by one I held in high esteem and one whose writings in your newspaper I never missed.