Resh­ma Ra­goonath

For­mer Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)?min­is­ter Ren­nie Du­mas says the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem is de­stroy­ing boys by treat­ing them like girls. He made the state­ment dur­ing his ad­dress at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) Vic­to­ria Dis­trict Teach­ers' Con­ven­tion held at the Mara­bel­la South Sec­ondary School, Gopaul Lands, Mara­bel­la, on Fri­day. The theme of the event was Take a Stand for Teach­ers.

The for­mer min­is­ter be­lieves the cur­rent ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem does not cater to pro­duc­ing men. "We are de­stroy­ing our boys in this coun­try. Our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem is not built for train­ing men. Lit­tle boys can­not sit down, lit­tle boys can­not stay qui­et, lit­tle boys have to take stands. They are dif­fer­ent and we con­tin­ue to treat our boys like girls,"?Du­mas said.

He called for a sys­tem over­haul to cor­rect the prob­lems faced in the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem. "One of the crit­i­cal things we have to deal with and un­der­stand is, we have to re­design the whole sys­tem. If we want men, we have to build an ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem that trains men, that treats with our cur­ricu­lum," he said.

Du­mas said so­ci­ety would change through the changes in the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem. He crit­i­cised the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion say­ing it was "run­ning by vaps." He said there was no ed­u­ca­tion plan for T&T. TTUTA of­fi­cials and the chief?per­son­nel of­fi­cer, Stephe­nie Lewis, were sched­uled to meet on Fri­day af­ter­noon to re­sume ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Du­mas sug­gest­ed that the present sys­tem "is cre­at­ing trou­ble for the rest of the com­pen­sa­tion sys­tem of the state." This, he said, was be­cause if the present salary sys­tem con­tin­ues, "prin­ci­pals may be paid bet­ter than the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary." He raised ob­jec­tion af­ter sev­er­al teach­ers at­tend­ed the con­ven­tion, signed the at­ten­dance reg­is­ter and left.

Six rows of chairs stood emp­ty in the hall, even though the con­ven­tion was well at­tend­ed. "I was watch­ing peo­ple walk­ing back out and I am say­ing to my­self, they came to sign. I con­sid­er that in­sult­ing. If you want to stay away, stay away. Find the beach, find where you are go­ing, but if you come to sign you are a cheat. You are a cheat," he said.

Du­mas said the teach­ers who signed and left came on­ly to the con­ven­tion to "de­lude every oth­er in­di­vid­ual in the hall, (to) de­lude (them­selves) and beat the sys­tem rather than tak­ing a stand for what (they) are." He urged the teach­ers to join in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the labour move­ment as they ag­i­tate for bet­ter wages.

"You can­not ar­gue that it is right to march when PNM in pow­er, but you can­not march if the (Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship)?is in of­fice. You ought to demon­strate a com­mit­ment to the labour move­ment, be­cause you have to treat with your fel­low work­ers as a fra­ter­ni­ty," he said.