Opposition hits Garcia

The clash came when the Lower House Standing Committee on Finance had resumed after a ten-minute suspension by Speaker Bridgid Annisette-George to quell a heated row on another matter.

Caroni East MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh said MPs have each received a flood of complaints that pupils have not received textbooks, and his Opposition colleague, Tabaquite MP Dr Suruj Rambachan, concurred by listing 16 schools he knew that had not been supplied with textbooks. Gopeesingh supported his case by quoting Budget documents that showed that while the Government had initially allocated $35 million to buy books for fiscal 2016, only $6 million was actually spent, even as just $9 million is now being allocated for fiscal 2017. By contrast, the former People’s Partnership (PP) government had spent $32 million on books, he said.

Gopeesingh said, “We have been besieged with calls by parents that their children have not received any new textbooks within the primary and secondary schools for the last 2015/16 and 2016/2017 academic year.” Garcia replied, “We have been visiting schools — Minister Dr Francis and other officials of the Ministry of Education — and every time we visit the schools we will take the opportunity to question students and teachers with respect to textbooks.

“I can safely say, as I’ve been saying before all along, that there is an adequate supply of textbooks in our schools. It is not true to say that our students are going to school without books in their school bags.

There is a surplus.” Garcia said he had visited a school where the principal showed him a room with hundreds of textbooks. “I want to repeat, as I’ve been saying over and over, there is an adequate supply of books in our schools.” Gopeesingh said that last year was the start of a new three-year cycle for book purchase, and asked the minister if he had bought any new books last year or this year.

Garcia replied “yes” that a “large number” of books had been bought to fully replenish 100 percent of books for Infant One and Infant Two in primary schools. “Those books are in the schools right now,” he assured. “Standards One to Five and Forms One to Six we are topping up by an average of ten percent, he said.” Asked if he has done it yet, he replied, “It is well on its way. The purchase has been done, the procurement has been done, and in some cases the books are in the schools already.” Gopeesingh asked, “Are you aware that during the People’s Partnership administration, we purchased...” He was cut off by Annisette-George, despite his protestations that his statement in fact qualified as falling within this line item of the Budget document on Recurrent Estimates of Expenditure.

Rambachan listed 16 schools in his constituency for which very few if any books had been received, including Happy Hill Hindu, Brasso RC, Tabaquite RC and Tabaquite Presbyterian Primary Schools, all of which had been advised to use photocopies and last year’s textbooks.

He said, “Sixteen schools. I spoke to each one. And only very few books were received by the infant departments. Are you aware of this? This is information that came from the schools themselves, not something made up.” Garcia replied, “We have also done our action research. Our school supervisors were mandated to go to the schools and provide us with information. They have gone out to the schools and conferred with the principals and the teachers and that is why I can confidently say that there is an adequate supply of textbooks in our schools. I’ve been saying that over and over and I’m not taking that out of a hat. It’s the result of the actual research that was done.” Earlier the House suspension came when Gopeesingh and Couva South MP Rudy Indarsingh had hit Garcia over the functioning or non-functioning of school boards of management.