Education Minister Anthony Garcia says he is hoping consultation with the national community early next year will bring results for his ministry.
Speaking at a news conference at the Ministry of Education’s head office at Alexandra Street in St Clair, Port-of-Spain, Garcia said the consultation would be held on a day the week after Carnival, whereas the next day it would be held in Tobago.
Garcia said he hoped the consultations would be held at the National Academy for Performing Arts (NAPA) which is expected to be available for use at that time.
“I would like to advise members of the public that the decision taken where education is concerned is from what transpired” earlier, he said.
The consultation will also focus on the Education Act to see if it is still serving its purpose, since it was established in 1966, to see if it is relevant.
He said it was not their intention to abolish the Concordat established in 1960.
Garcia said the consultations would focus on improving education delivery through the syllabus.
He said another issue would be indiscipline in schools which would be a focus of the consultation.
“We are hoping it (consultation) will bring ideas and I am an optimist. Too much times we hear of indiscipline in schools and the teachers’ problems with the students. We are hoping it will bring ideas to move forward. I want to assure the national community it must be brought to an end and minimised,” he said.
Garcia said every child has the ability to learn and no child should be denied that opportunity.
“In the school system, there are many impediments that we are seeing today that will affect the learning of our children and once they are removed we will see an increase in the opportunities for learning.
“It is tied into bullying. There is evidence it has been reported that many students are being left unsupervised in our schools. We will be engaging behavioural psychologists qualified in the field to assist us. The consultation will air the view of those with expertise and we will draw from that pool and we can handle this problem.
”I want to move forward and we have to find out why they are being unsupervised and account for that and we will hear the views of the national community and we will move forward,” he said.
Garcia said metal detectors might be necessary but corporal punishment was a thing of the past.
As for the School Feeding Programme, Garcia said the reason the teachers were eating the box food was to show the students “proper etiquette.”
He said the purpose of the box lunch was to teach the students how to use proper etiquette.
“I served in primary and secondary school and it was expected that teachers would sit and observe the students and educate them on etiquette. The teacher was also required to partake and it has caused a lot of problems,” he said.
Garcia said teachers were refraining from eating the box lunch because of the negative feedback.
Meanwhile, he said, efforts were made to pay outstanding stipends to those studying abroad and fees have also been paid.