D’Abadie/O'meara MP Ancil Antoine yesterday appealed to principals and teachers to take responsibility for their students, as too many students are dropping out of the secondary school system.
Antoine said the increasing numbers of dropouts in the school system was attributing to scores of young men and women being left unskilled, untrained and unemployable and with a bleak future.
Antoine was delivering his contribution to the budget debate in Parliament.
He said while education has been allocated $7.29 billion in the 2018 fiscal package, there was a shortage of primary school placement at the denominational schools in his constituency.
Antoine said it was also evident that “quite a number of (school) dropouts has been engaging the attention of Education Minister Anthony Garcia.
“There is a high drop-out rate. We are producing young men and who are unskilled, untrainable and unemployable, except for the criminal class in our midst,” he said.
Antoine did not throw blame on the shoulders of the Government or Opposition, as he urged principals and teachers to take ownership of their product.
He said the T&T Unified Teachers Association and the Ministry of Education can also help to some degree.
“You have a responsibility especially when we are spending $7.2 billion on the education system for this year alone. You’ll have a responsibility to give us some better citizens coming out of the secondary schools.”
He said the time had come time for the country to get its get act together and produce better citizens.