Let’s move beyond ‘chalk and talk’

Trinidad and Tobago produces some of the top students in the world and as a result it may be easy to forget that our education system is in crisis. The fundamental problem with the education system in Trinidad and Tobago is that no government has truly understood its importance to societal development. Education of our population is the panacea to all our social ills whether it is unemployment, crime or HIV. Education is the vehicle on the road to developed nation status. Despite the significant sums of money allocated to the Ministry of Education, in my view, primary and secondary education are given a lower priority by our government relative to other sectors of the economy, such as oil and gas. For example, if we were to build another LNG train, neither mountain nor sea would stand in its way. However, when it comes to the education of our children, only cosmetic changes are being introduced.

I would like to make a few comments with regard to the education sector. Firstly, out of the multitude of problems, I believe that the most critical one is the high student to teacher ratio, which makes effective teaching almost impossible. The student to teacher ratio must be reduced to a maximum of fifteen to one in any class to allow for students to receive individual attention to correct deficiencies. For the similar reasons, the “shift system” must also become a thing of the past. Education should be about quality not just throughput. To achieve these, however, schools must be constructed at an unprecedented rate and the number of teachers must also be increased accordingly. Teachers must also be given the necessary training and resources to move beyond “chalk and talk” and encompass more modern teaching approaches. Although, these actions require significant resources both in the short and long term, the returns are worth the investments. To give credit to the previous regime, they did embark on a school building drive however with the introduction of universal secondary education without the necessary increases in the number of teachers and resources, it was a case of two steps forward and three steps backward.

Schooling should prepare an individual for the working world as well as create a well-rounded individual who is capable of participation in a society. Thus, my second point is that our education system is too academically focused and as such, may eliminate intelligent individuals who may have different competencies. Choice is a fundamental aspect of education. Persons are likely to excel if they are being trained in an area which is of interest to them. Thus, I believe that the traditional approach to primary and secondary education must be radically changed. I would like to recommend that primary education focus mainly on literacy and numeracy. Other activities on the curriculum, such as arts, sports, games, languages and science should aim to expose children to a broad range of experiences in a highly interactive format. These activities should be used for aptitude testing to determine what competencies are inherent in these young individuals and thus which direction they should be channelled. For secondary education, I would also like to see the development of Specialist Training Centres in the areas of science and technology, languages, arts and sport.

The aim would be to produce well-rounded individuals with specialist qualifications in a particular area. These graduates should be capable of obtaining employment or creating and managing their own business. For example, a football STC, would produce not only high quality players but the next generation of coaches, referees, sports administrators as well as manufacturers and merchandisers of football equipment. A Science and Technology STC would prepare children for careers in the oil and gas, Information Technology, scientific research or manufacturing. It is critical that the curriculum for each STC be tailored for their industry.

Finally, in our cultural reality, we need to pay special attention to those children who, by necessity or choice, have chosen to work instead of attending formal school.  Working is education and we need to put systems in place to ensure that these persons are certified for their skills. For example, a child working in a mechanic garage should be certified providing he or she is capable of certain examinable technical tasks and has basic literacy and numeracy. Placing such a child in our current education system is likely to be more detrimental to his development. Alas, children do not vote, thus their welfare will never be of primary importance. As a society, we must be willing to break our “mimic men” mentality and embark on real changes, which would impact on the problems at hand.