The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has been called out for not en­sur­ing ad­e­quate staffing to de­liv­er en­tre­pre­neur­ship and sport-re­lat­ed sub­jects and ac­tiv­i­ties in schools. This hap­pened yes­ter­day when the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) on Hu­man Rights, Equal­i­ty and Di­ver­si­ty held its 14th vir­tu­al hear­ing which fo­cused on up­dat­ing the na­tion­al pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school cur­ricu­lum to in­clude en­tre­pre­neur­ship and sport-re­lat­ed sub­jects.

Al­though phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion is man­dat­ed to be taught at the pri­ma­ry school lev­el, stake­hold­ers ex­pressed con­cern that sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties are not be­ing host­ed by schools, in­clud­ing at zon­al and dis­trict lev­els.

Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools Prin­ci­pals’ As­so­ci­a­tion (NAPSPA) pres­i­dent Car­lene Hayes said se­cur­ing sport­ing venues is a prob­lem and sports grounds are of­ten not main­tained. Hayes al­so claimed schools do not re­ceive fund­ing from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion for sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.

She said schools have to out­source funds to host sport­ing events, which leaves out many stu­dents from po­ten­tial­ly reach­ing na­tion­al lev­el.

“We don’t get funds. We have to do our fundrais­ing and beg cor­po­rate cit­i­zens to as­sist us in get­ting these games. Coach­es are paid for by the school. We get vol­un­teers some­times,” Hayes said.

As­so­ci­a­tion of Prin­ci­pals of Pub­lic Sec­ondary School of T&T (APPSS) pres­i­dent Shar­lene Hicks-Rae­burn told the JSC teach­ers of­ten are the ones who give up their free time to plan, host and coach stu­dents for them to ex­cel in ac­tiv­i­ties oth­er than aca­d­e­mics.

“The phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion teach­ers have their par­tic­u­lar man­date. They are in fact there to teach the cur­ricu­lum. They are not ob­lig­at­ed to be part of sports which can be seen as a co-cur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ty. When you talk­ing about ad­di­tion­al as­sis­tance to spend that time to have some­one ded­i­cat­ed to the de­vel­op­ment of tal­ent, hu­man re­sources are crit­i­cal,” Hicks-Rae­burn said.

“Pay­ments of coach­es is an is­sue that can be la­bo­ri­ous and the sys­tems in place do not make it very easy for one to be able to pay a coach in a time­ly man­ner. Some of the meth­ods of as­sess­ment of in­di­vid­u­als who are asked or who may come to or ex­press an in­ter­est in be­ing a coach . . . can serve as a de­ter­rent at times.”

Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes crit­i­cised the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry for al­low­ing these is­sues to con­tin­ue. She sad their ac­tions do not match their mis­sion of en­sur­ing qual­i­ty ed­u­ca­tion at the na­tion­al lev­el.

Haynes urged the min­istry to es­tab­lish in­cen­tives and ac­tive­ly seek qual­i­fied pro­fes­sion­als for co-cur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties.

“I dis­agree com­plete­ly that it should be the role of the schools, prin­ci­pals and teach­ers go­ing out there in­to the com­mu­ni­ties look­ing for peo­ple. This is not a side hus­tle,” she said.

“If we do not have a hu­man re­source pro­gramme, every­thing else we dis­cuss to­day will not come to fruition be­cause we just don’t have peo­ple in the sys­tem to make it work.”