Mr Minister, you have been a teacher for 39 years. How did that experience compare with the almost one year you have so far been in charge of the T&T’s education system, which includes a teaching fraternity, which has a staff of some 25,000 personnel?
A: (Garcia was in a sombre mode. It was around 6 pm and he had just chaired meeting at the ministry’s newly-opened headquarters on lower St Vincent Street, Port-of-Spain).
Those years I spent as a teacher and principal were enjoyable and it is difficult to make a comparison but in one word this has been a challenge and it has been made easier as I enjoy my present dispensation without the slightest doubt. My biggest challenge has been ensuring the incidence of violence and indiscipline in our schools is brought to a halt and I have been successful where this has been concerned.
It is a fact that we have not seen any such cases recently in the media. Are you willing to say these incidents are now in the past and are you willing to put your head on the block in this instance?
I am keeping my fingers crossed. At the ministry we have been working closely together to ensure that our objectives and those of the government are met, and our technical staff has been giving us tremendous support. I do not want to put my head on any block because I may (smiling gently, tapping the edge of his desk) get my head chopped off. We are indeed working on school-based programmes ensuring all the stake holders are engaged in having our children taught in a safe environment.
Mr Garcia, I have the perception that you have been receiving your fair share of criticism in the operations of your ministry, particularly from some radio talk show hosts...
In what area?
Generally…
I don’t share your perception that I have been receiving a lot of negative publicity, of course there are those who will criticise whatever you do. The former Minister of Education is one in point, Dr Tim Goopesingh. Anything I say, anything I do, he jumps up to criticise, seeming to forget he is no longer the Minister of Education. In terms of what comes across in the media, I think it has been quite positive.
It is a little late in the game to ask how you set about achieving some of the ministry’s priority objectives but...
In collaboration with Dr Francis Lovell and the ministry’s technocrats we have set out to put several plans consistent with our party’s manifesto which has been made government policy which includes the laptop initiative for example.
Isn’t that one of the areas in which you have been criticised?
I got criticised by a few but the great majority have told me they appreciate and under-stand...complimenting us, because it was a colossal waste of resources, financial and human. It was not used as a support of the schools’ curriculum and in fact one of the policies is that we must infuse ICT technology in our education system. That was not helping us in that direction.
So we had to come up with a five-point ICT plan which includes the use of laptops but in a different way...we are not giving them to school children, they will remain in the schools which was one of the things we set out to achieve.
What were the major findings which militated against the children taking the laptops home?
They were being used by the children for playing games, teachers were not adequately trained in their use and the schools themselves were not fully equipped to facilitate their integration into the schools themselves.
But Mr Garcia there have also been findings that laptops can be valuable tools used in the classrooms.
Yes, when they are used properly.
Getting back to this question of public opinion on which I gather you are placing a more than usual emphasis. Why are you so keen on this matter?
Okay. We value the feedback we receive from the general public and on this issue of the school nutrition programme on which we propose to launch an audit. The original policy of this programme was, and still remains, that the children who are genuinely in need of these meals are the principal beneficiaries. These children will be identified and this information will be sent to the programme administrators and what we have decided in this dispensation is to ensure there is a greater supply of local content.
Has the Ministry found any deficiencies in this programme?
There was some concern about what was fed to students and we want to ensure the meals are healthy. Over the last few years there have been some concerns about wastage...murmurings here and there, about some practices that were not in accordance with the objectives of the programme, value for money and as a result Cabinet has decided on an audit of the school feeding programme.
Gate, Mr Garcia, as you are well aware, this has been the subject of wide public discussion, or controversy or what have you.
Yes...yes. Very well this has been...I can safely say that Gate was subjected to a high degree of wastage.
When you say wastage you know there is a sort of thin line between wastage and fraud?
No I am not saying fraud. The evidence is there of a number of students who had accessed Gate funding and they were not using that opportunity to improve their studies.
Isn’t that a fault with the administering of the programme, Mr Garcia?
Well over the years—and I am not blaming of the previous operators—Gate has been here for several years and some students were not adapting themselves to serious studies. Too many of them were liming, not making full use of the opportunities.
You know Mr Garcia I recently interviewed several UWI lecturers who all said the programme was subjected to abuse.
Well in terms of deficiencies I think the problem was with those persons who did not use it for the purposes intended. Allow me, Clevon, to make this other point. There was the hopping of programmes. In other words, they would sign up for programme X and then jump to programme Y.
Wasn’t that an attempt to defraud the programme?
I do not know what was the mindset that existed among some people who felt there was the need to be perennial students. The longer they spent at the university it appeared to be better for them. I know some of them who were going to the university for the last 12 years.
Mr Minister, I don’t know if you feel you should be politically correct in answering that question but surely you don’t think it was deliberate attempts to abuse the programme?
I don’t know about deliberate attempts but I do know it was subject to abuse. There were many deficiencies in the programme and it was being referred to...I am trying to remember the way it was described ...but a number of persons who could have afforded to pay for their tertiary education. Everybody was able to access Gate.
Would you say then, Mr Minister, it was a free for all?
(Ironic smile ) It was a free for all, yes, and that is a nice term to use, free for all. If the Government is about to provide assistance to students, especially in a time when our finances are not as they used to be, obviously we have to look at it more closely.
Do you agree that if the money was as bountiful as it used to be there wouldn’t be this kind of concern about the operation of Gate at this time?
Clevon as a responsible government even if we had the money we would still have put it to good use.