Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment is ad­vanc­ing pol­i­cy geared to­wards in­te­grat­ing mi­grant chil­dren in­to the pri­ma­ry school ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem by Sep­tem­ber.

The rev­e­la­tion by Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne yes­ter­day fol­lows re­peat­ed calls from stake­hold­ers and ac­tivists for the dis­placed chil­dren to have ac­cess to tu­ition.

Dur­ing a hu­man­i­tar­i­an break­fast se­ries, Dr Browne stat­ed that ed­u­ca­tion with­out bor­ders for mi­grant chil­dren could soon be a re­al­i­ty, “That tra­jec­to­ry and op­por­tu­ni­ties I had as a child I would want for every sin­gle child in Trinidad and To­ba­go. I’m say­ing this not just in the­o­ry but to her­ald the Gov­ern­ment’s ad­vances in pol­i­cy which have brought us to a point where we can look for­ward to in the very near fu­ture ...

“Ef­forts are tak­ing place for this to oc­cur in the com­ing school year, for at the pri­ma­ry lev­el we can fa­cil­i­tate in­te­gra­tion and ac­cess to pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion by chil­dren of mi­grants.”

There were no talks sur­round­ing the in­te­gra­tion of stu­dents with­in the sec­ondary school sys­tem.

Dr Browne al­so told par­tic­i­pants that ef­forts were need­ed to bridge the gaps that pose a chal­lenge to the en­rol­ment of mi­grant chil­dren.

“The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is on­board, the Prime Min­is­ter and Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter have been a big part of this im­pe­tus, this shift, this pro­gres­sion. It is go­ing to take some con­sid­er­able work be­tween now and then, so we can ac­knowl­edge lan­guage bar­ri­ers and sev­er­al oth­er chal­lenges but these are not be­yond our ca­pac­i­ty to solve,” he said.

The For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter al­so thanked lo­cal stake­hold­ers for their role in mit­i­gat­ing the fall­out caused by the ab­sence of pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion for mi­grant chil­dren and al­so cred­it­ed ex­ter­nal agen­cies in­clud­ing of­fi­cials at the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca Em­bassy for their ad­vo­ca­cy works on the mat­ter.

“I want to thank these stake­hold­ers and oth­er diplo­mat­ic mis­sions and or­gan­i­sa­tions who have been work­ing very hard on this is­sue and who have been the ad­vo­cates on this is­sue, en­cour­ag­ing the Gov­ern­ment to re­view its po­si­tion and to take ac­tion in pur­suit of the rights of chil­dren in our shores.”

Dur­ing a vis­it to the La Ro­main Mi­grant Sup­port at the St Bene­dict’s Ro­man Catholic Church last month, US Am­bas­sador Can­dace Bond reaf­firmed that the US stood ready to as­sist in mak­ing ed­u­ca­tion a  re­al­i­ty for mi­grant chil­dren.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly al­so said that the min­istry was in dis­cus­sion with the Catholic Ed­u­ca­tion Board on the mat­ter. It was re­port­ed ear­li­er this year that a study con­duct­ed by the In­ter­na­tion­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Mi­gra­tion un­earthed that more than 60 per cent of Venezue­lan mi­grant chil­dren did not have ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion in T&T.

The find­ings of the study al­so showed un­der­pay­ment of Venezue­lan mi­grants and point­ed to in­crease con­cerns about the up­take of sex­u­al and re­pro­duc­tive health.

Stake­hold­ers re­act

Stake­hold­ers have been clam­our­ing for mi­grant chil­dren to be al­lowed to ac­cess an ed­u­ca­tion. Among them is the co-or­di­na­tor of the La Ro­main Mi­grant Sup­port Group Ang­ie Ram­nar­ine.

“We have been say­ing mi­grant chil­dren need to be ed­u­cat­ed for years. We didn’t want to lose a gen­er­a­tion and add to crime and oth­er so­cial prob­lems. We thought that one of the first ways to ad­dress one of the many is­sues that mi­grants were hav­ing was to start with the chil­dren’s ed­u­ca­tion,” Ram­nar­ine had told Guardian Me­dia in an in­ter­view last year.

This was af­ter Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar raised the is­sue of chil­dren’s ed­u­ca­tion and called on the Gov­ern­ment to act.

Say­ing that the Gov­ern­ment had ac­cept­ed the mi­grant and giv­en them li­cence to stay in T&T, Per­sad-Bisses­sar called on them to al­low their chil­dren to en­ter our pub­lic school sys­tem to get an ed­u­ca­tion.

In 2019, 16,523 Venezue­lan mi­grants were al­lowed to legal­ly work in T&T and since then they have been giv­en ex­ten­sions to legal­ly work and live here.

Ac­cord­ing to the Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Refugees (UN­HCR) da­ta last year, there were just over 4,000 chil­dren, be­tween the ages of five and 17 years, among the asy­lum seek­ers and refugees reg­is­tered with the UN­HCR in T&T.

So­cial ac­tivist Sofia Figueroa-Leon, re­act­ing to the min­is­ter’s state­ments on mi­grant chil­dren, said it was sig­nif­i­cant.

“This is the best news I have heard late­ly re­gard­ing mi­grants, it is a step in the right di­rec­tion for mi­grant chil­dren to be in­clud­ed in our schools with our Trinida­di­an and To­bag­on­ian stu­dents. It will al­low them to in­te­grate in­to so­ci­ety and just the fact they are be­ing al­lowed an ed­u­ca­tion speaks vol­umes.”

For the last sev­er­al years Di­rec­tor of the Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty Rhon­da Main­got has been ad­vo­cat­ing for a sus­tain­able arrange­ment that will al­low mi­grant chil­dren ac­cess and in­te­gra­tion in­to the coun­try’s school sys­tem. Main­got told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to the mat­ter was laud­able. “We are ab­solute­ly hap­py and thrilled about this news and we thank God for open­ing the doors to the very needy sis­ters and broth­ers.”

TTUTA has reser­va­tions

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion Mar­tin Lum Kin said while the or­gan­i­sa­tion has not been part of any pol­i­cy dis­cus­sion on the mat­ter, it un­der­stands the hu­man­i­tar­i­an is­sue.

Lum Kin not­ed, how­ev­er, that TTUTA had its reser­va­tions about the pro­posed move.

He said, “We recog­nise there are a num­ber of schools that are at ca­pac­i­ty in terms of the stu­dent pop­u­la­tion and in­clud­ing ad­di­tion­al stu­dents who are not cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go. We have to be aware that they do not dis­place cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“The sizes of the class­es may have to ex­pand and TTUTA has an agree­ment with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion in terms of class sizes. We are al­so con­cerned about re­sources at the schools to fa­cil­i­tate these ad­di­tion­al stu­dents. TTUTA is hope­ful there will be con­sid­er­a­tion of these is­sues when the Gov­ern­ment and the min­istry plan to ad­dress this is­sue.”

UNC MP calls for trans­par­ent process

Ani­ta Haynes, the UNC’s shad­ow ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter, told Guardian Me­dia that the po­lit­i­cal par­ty viewed ed­u­ca­tion as a ba­sic hu­man right that all chil­dren should have ac­cess to. She added, “The bar­ri­er is that per­sons with­out prop­er doc­u­men­ta­tion which is re­quired for an ed­u­ca­tion per­mit were not al­lowed or have not been al­lowed in­to the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

“While they are say­ing they are open to it, what they have to do is be very re­al­is­tic. A lot of these chil­dren com­ing across here will not be in pos­ses­sion of the prop­er doc­u­ments they are look­ing for, so if you have to of­fi­cial­ly re­move a bar­ri­er but in re­al­i­ty, it still ex­ists, you will not be achiev­ing uni­ver­sal ed­u­ca­tion.”