Mrs Manning cannot draft and execute policy as well

"Education — The principal avenue of social mobility": Hon George Chambers, late Prime Minister and Minister of Finance in his 1984 Budget Speech.

Thirty years ago, in 1975, when a People’s National Movement Adm-inistration "embarked seriously", as then prime minister, (the late) Dr Eric Williams, would say in his 1981 Budget Speech "on a programme of schools maintenance," few could have foreseen that 30 years later that there would have been literally scores of schools in Trinidad and Tobago in a sad scandalous state of disrepair.

Dr Williams had seen in the move to have a continuous upgrade of both secondary and primary schools, what he would describe as "this commitment made by Cabinet to the education of. . . citizens." A specialist foreign company had been contracted both to effect maintenance of schools and train Trinidadians and Tobagonians to take over. A division of maintenance was established in the Ministry of Works. Its name would later be changed to the Ministry of Government Construction and Maintenance, among others which would follow.

But while Cabinet on the initiative of one or more ministries can institute policies, nonetheless it is for the relevant public service officials to interpret and execute those policies. Several days ago the Ministry of Education’s Communications Specialist, Mervyn Critchlow, revealed that 159 schools — secondary and primary — were being targetted for refurbishment and/or repairs at a cost of $65 million. What is disturbing, along with that of the number of schools involved, is the level of decay of these and yet other schools not covered in the proposed exercise.

There are secondary schools with major leaks in their roofs and electrical wiring in urgent need not merely of repair, but of replacement, leaking water pipes and faulty toilets. In one Port-of-Spain secondary school the students are required, on a continuing basis, to walk through a disgustingly large area of water on the way to the toilets. Meanwhile, clearly the water, the result of a faulty line, poses a health hazard to the student population. At any time there can be an outbreak of dengue.

In addition, the school’s hall which should be the pride of the boys and girls attending the institution, many of them from low income families, is in a state of disrepair, what with several ceiling tiles having fallen out. Maintenance of the nation’s schools must be, like that of the houses in which citizens live, on a continuing basis. And in much the same way that house owners tend to effect, or seek to effect repairs to their homes before the problems become great, officialdom should seek to have needed repairs to schools done early. There are cases in which school principals have drawn to the attention of relevant officials of the Ministry of Education areas of their schools requiring urgent maintenance. Yet in all too many instances the requests are still to be acted upon and the buildings continue to deteriorate.

Perhaps the worst example of neglect has been that of my alma mater, the Queen’s Royal College. The long, sad pleas to have Queen’s Royal’s Hall, whose handsome famous ceiling is in an advanced state of decay, are legion, perhaps cynically bearing out with a vengeance the motto of Queen’s Royal: "All struggle but not for all is the prize." And while the following may not be applicable to QRC, there is always the possibility that students attending some of the Government secondary schools may be demotivated if the schools they attend are neglected by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Works.

I wish to make the point that although the final responsibility for the nation’s primary and secondary schools and, increasingly, early childhood care centres, rests with the Minister of Education, Senator Hazel Manning, this responsibility and understandably so for practical reasons has been delegated to the several rungs of officialdom in the Ministry. It would be absurd, say, for anyone to seriously argue that Mrs Manning should inspect personally all or any of the secondary and primary schools in Trinidad and Tobago to ensure that they are properly maintained. Clearly, Mrs Manning cannot be expected, at least by reasonable thinking individuals not only to formulate policy but to execute it as well. There are officials in her Ministry at various rungs of the ladder who are paid to ensure that laid down policy is executed and to report back. There are lines of communications and tiers of responsibility at the Ministry of Education as there are at all of the nation’s several Ministries.

I wish to make this additional point that it would not be entirely correct to say that Minister Manning having articulated policy, that the policy cannot be altered by top ranking public service officers in her ministry, who are required to carry out the policy. And this, even after a Cabinet Note on the matter, presented and argued by the Education Minister has been approved by Cabinet. It is a curious part of the Westminster system. As R G S Brown points out in his work, "The Administrative Process in Britain," published by Penguin, "High officials are not mere instruments of a political will. They have knowledge and values of their own which are applied not only in executing policy but in arranging for the policy to be changed."

But there has to be meaning and purpose to the change, which in essence seeks to interpret what the Minister wants and hopes to achieve through the policy decision. Clearly, those to whom the responsibility of executing policy lies or is delegated, regardless of the level of their tier or rank, medium or low rung of the administrative ladder, the spirit of the Minister’s policy must be respected and observed or a valid reason offered. But, surely, there can be no valid reason for the relevant officials allowing school buildings, furnishings and furniture to deteriorate.

Not too long ago, Mrs Manning introduced and has since expanded the question of school boards. They are expected, among other things, to put a brake on the neglect and deterioration of school buildings and with them the possible loss of self-esteem by students. Lest I be misunderstood the reasons for the Boards of Education are far wider. The various Boards of Education should see as their principal function, as Scott M Cutlip and Allen H Center have argued in their book, Effective Public Relations "interpreting the community to the school staff and, in turn, interpreting, staff ideas and policies to the community." Cutlip and Center have spoken also of the involvement of parents of students and the seeking of Public Relations solutions. But I have strayed. School Boards will have to be the subject of another column.