Officials of the El Dorado East Secondary School up to yesterday were attempting to contact parents of the 21 students who are to be removed from the institution after engaging in “unacceptable and undesirable behaviour.”
This is part of the process as suspension letters were expected to be issued to the students from yesterday.
Providing an update on the situation at the school prior to delivering the opening address at the Safety and Security in Schools workshop, hosted by the CORE Foundation at the Hyatt Regency, Port-of-Spain, chief education officer Harrilal Seecharan vowed: “We are not giving up on any of the students.”
The students were selected from 31, who were listed by school officials as deviant.
On Sunday, Education Minister Anthony Garcia said ten students had been removed from the list following a meeting with school officials, including guidance counsellors, who indicated they could be rehabilitated within the school system.
Seecharan said the remaining 21 students were to be enrolled at the Couva Learning Enhancement Centre where they would undergo a three-week programme which included counselling, remedial sessions and interactive therapy.
He explained that based on assessments throughout the programme, “we will recommend whether they go back into the school or explore alternative options.”
However, he assured the Form Five students who were scheduled to write the May/June exams that they would be allowed to do so.
Returning to the issue at hand, Seecharan said they were concentrating on efforts to get parents to partner with the ministry.
Pressed to say how the ministry intended to get students who were over 16 years and over to attend the rehabilitative programme, Seecharan said they would not stand in judgment of parents who had not attended last Monday’s meeting at the Education Ministry.
“With the students over 16, we are not giving up and we will continue to try to get them back into the system,” Seecharan said, adding: “We have to encourage them.”
Unwilling to cite the situation at El Dorado East Secondary as an isolated case, Seecharan added: “We have these cycles we go through. In the last four or five years, more incidents are being highlighted.”
He said the data did not suggest the number of incidents had increased exponentially, but rather “incidents were being highlighted in the media which in the past may not have been.”