Sat Ma­haraj

In the past years, at­tempts have been made to im­pose com­pul­so­ry na­tion­al ser­vice as a so­lu­tion to in­creased crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties by our young peo­ple. Some five years ago, Mr Louis Lee Sing, who at the time owned a num­ber of ra­dio sta­tions, pro­mot­ed the idea and even called a con­fer­ence at the Town Hall in Port-of-Spain where I was in­vit­ed to present a pa­per.

The Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) of 1986, led by Mr ANR Robin­son, made a na­tion­al ef­fort to force the na­tion­al ser­vice up­on the peo­ple of T&T. The then min­is­ter in charge of na­tion­al ser­vice was Lin­coln May­ers who met with strong re­sis­tance from the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha and par­ents from across the coun­try. This idea was quick­ly scrapped but it didn't save the NAR which had won the elec­tion by 33 seats to 3, to lose the next elec­tion in a com­pre­hen­sive man­ner.

To­day, a team of aca­d­e­mics that in­cludes Prof Sel­wyn Ryan (chair), Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad (deputy chair), Dr Lennox Bernard, Prof Pa­tri­cia Mo­hammed and Dr Mar­jorie Thor­pe, in a spe­cial re­port, is ad­vis­ing the PP gov­ern­ment and the peo­ple of T&T, that na­tion­al ser­vice should be a com­pul­so­ry com­po­nent in our ed­u­ca­tion­al sys­tem.This com­mit­tee had dif­fi­cul­ties iden­ti­fy­ing coun­tries where na­tion­al ser­vice is manda­to­ry and ad­mits that "many so­ci­eties are strug­gling with the is­sue of com­pul­so­ry ser­vice ver­sus vol­un­teerism."

We quote: "The province of On­tario, Cana­da, has sought a re­prieve by in­tro­duc­ing a form of ser­vice learn­ing that is com­pul­so­ry with­in the con­text of for­mal school­ing, but in fair­ness to the province, vol­un­teerism is stan­dard fare from as ear­ly as pri­ma­ry school­ing so that the re­quired 40 con­tact hours at the com­ple­tion of sec­ondary school­ing are gen­er­al­ly dou­bled or tripled."In the USA, where vol­un­teerism is pop­u­lar, there is a grow­ing call for com­pul­so­ry ser­vice main­ly in the mil­i­tary.

"Ja­maica has been rel­a­tive­ly com­fort­able with its Na­tion­al Ser­vice Scheme based on a vol­un­tary vo­ca­tion­al pro­gramme. The rec­om­men­da­tion for Trinidad and To­ba­go is for the def­i­nite con­sid­er­a­tion of na­tion­al ser­vice based on our so­cio-cul­tur­al land­scape tak­ing in­to ac­count aca­d­e­m­ic ra­tio­nal­ism, so­cial re­con­struc­tion and hu­man­ism and the per­son­al de­vel­op­ment of the in­di­vid­ual.

"In 2010, the British gov­ern­ment be­gan a pi­lot scheme aimed at get­ting more young peo­ple in­volved in the com­mu­ni­ty. The scheme called the Na­tion­al Cit­i­zen Ser­vice Scheme was launched dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign and was a cen­tral plank to the PM's mis­sion to em­pow­er com­mu­ni­ties and en­cour­age vol­un­teer­ing.

"The scheme in­cludes two weeks away from home dur­ing the sum­mer and in­cludes a cur­ricu­lum of team-build­ing ex­er­cis­es, lead­er­ship skills and in­di­vid­ual chal­lenges. Tee­side was one of the 12 UK-wide ar­eas to pi­lot the scheme which was open to 16-year-olds and sec­ond-year school leavers. It is a vol­un­tary scheme where stu­dents are en­cour­aged to join the plan on Face­book."

In the com­mit­tee's sur­vey, the rec­om­men­da­tion re­ceived a 69.1 per cent sup­port from in­di­vid­u­als in "hot spot" ar­eas and slight­ly less sup­port of 59.5 per cent in non hot spot ar­eas. We note that it was op­posed by 20.5 per cent and 24 per cent, re­spec­tive­ly. This could pose chal­lenges to its im­ple­men­ta­tion, the com­mit­tee re­alis­es.

The Louis Lee Sing ini­tia­tive al­so point­ed out that the "hot spot" ar­eas, es­pe­cial­ly on the East-West cor­ri­dor was of great con­cern. We are there­fore not sur­prised that Pro­fes­sor Ryan and his team re­ceived 69.1 per cent sup­port from these hot spot ar­eas.The Ma­ha Sab­ha's con­tentions have al­ways been that if in T&T the crime prob­lem is be­yond the con­trol of the po­lice, then the aca­d­e­mics and the state should cre­ate pro­grammes that are spe­cial­ly de­signed for young peo­ple in these so called "hot spot" ar­eas.

The Ma­ha Sab­ha will mo­bilise sup­port from across the coun­try to op­pose any at­tempt by this com­mit­tee and any gov­ern­ment to im­pose a na­tion­al ser­vice scheme as was in­tro­duced un­der the Burn­ham regime in Guyana and dur­ing the pe­ri­od of the coup in Grena­da.

Dur­ing our dis­cus­sion in the 1980s, we in­vit­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Guyana and from Grena­da to speak to our au­di­ence on the dan­gers of na­tion­al ser­vice and the crim­i­nal ef­fects it had in our young peo­ple. The Guyana rep­re­sen­ta­tive on this con­fer­ence ex­plained how "young teenage girls went in­to these res­i­den­tial camps and came back home preg­nant."

What is more dis­turb­ing about this re­port is that at item 5, page 66, these five aca­d­e­mics rec­om­mend: "No in­di­vid­ual should be con­sid­ered for schol­ar­ship, fel­low­ship, oth­er awards, jobs place­ments or any oth­er na­tion­al recog­ni­tion un­less there is a valid record in the NCES of Na­tion­al Ser­vice ren­dered to Trinidad and To­ba­go."

If such a de­cree is passed in­to law, then the chil­dren of the wealthy will be the on­ly ones to achieve aca­d­e­m­ic ex­cel­lence. The ef­fect will be to widen the gap be­tween the rich and the poor and to en­sure that on­ly one group of peo­ple's chil­dren achieve ed­u­ca­tion lev­els that all our chil­dren de­serve.