RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As some sec­ondary schools re­quire par­ents to pay for school pack­ages cost­ing $4,000 or more, oth­ers are seek­ing to ease the fi­nan­cial bur­den by of­fer­ing free text­books, ze­ro reg­is­tra­tion fees, and pro­vid­ing ad­di­tion­al sup­port for stu­dents.

At La Ro­maine Sec­ondary School, par­ents are not re­quired to pay reg­is­tra­tion fees and stu­dents re­ceive text­books free of charge.

On Thurs­day, the school host­ed a one-hour ori­en­ta­tion pro­gramme aimed at re­as­sur­ing par­ents and chal­leng­ing the stig­ma that has long sur­round­ed the in­sti­tu­tion.

Dur­ing the event, par­ents were in­tro­duced to the school’s sup­port sys­tems, in­clud­ing en­hanced safe­ty mea­sures, coun­selling ser­vices and an ac­tive Par­ent-Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (PTA).

Prin­ci­pal Ra­jesh Sir­ju said chang­ing pub­lic per­cep­tion re­mained one of the school’s biggest chal­lenges.

“We are one of the more for­tu­nate schools in that we have a lot of sup­port,” Sir­ju said.

He not­ed that the school has two safe­ty of­fi­cers and was among the first schools to ben­e­fit from Sec­ondary School-Ori­ent­ed Po­lice Of­fi­cers (SO­POs).

In ad­di­tion, stu­dents have ac­cess to both a guid­ance coun­sel­lor and a so­cial work­er.

Sir­ju ac­knowl­edged that while the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ty of­ten at­tracts neg­a­tive at­ten­tion be­cause of crime out­side the school walls, par­ents should not judge the school by what oc­curs out­side its gates.

“You would have no­ticed this morn­ing that, as part of the ori­en­ta­tion pro­gramme, we spent about an hour talk­ing to par­ents about La Ro­maine and what the school has to of­fer be­cause the com­mu­ni­ty has a stig­ma that is not as pos­i­tive as we would like it to be,” he said.

“There’s a lot of talk of drugs and guns and is­sues like that, but that is, I’m proud to say, not in­side our school but out­side the school. In­side here, we have a very high lev­el of dis­ci­pline, and our stu­dents are ex­celling over the years.”

He said the school want­ed par­ents to feel con­fi­dent that their chil­dren would be safe at La Ro­maine.

Sir­ju said the school hoped that grad­u­al­ly the pub­lic’s per­cep­tion would change.

He said one chal­lenge, how­ev­er, is trans­porta­tion.

Sir­ju said the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion was aware of the is­sue and had be­gun iden­ti­fy­ing com­mu­ni­ties where trans­porta­tion gaps ex­ist.

The prin­ci­pal al­so ap­pealed for fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance from cor­po­rate cit­i­zens and mem­bers of the pub­lic to help im­prove fa­cil­i­ties at the school.

“We need our fi­nances. So any­one out there, if you want to con­tribute, we’re tak­ing fi­nan­cial do­na­tions,” he said, adding that all do­na­tions would be sub­ject to prop­er ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy.

The school cur­rent­ly has an en­rol­ment of just un­der 600 stu­dents.

Sir­ju al­so chal­lenged the no­tion of “pres­tige” and “non-pres­tige” schools.

“All chil­dren have po­ten­tial. The stig­ma of pres­tige and non-pres­tige schools is some­thing we must over­come be­cause each child has the po­ten­tial to suc­ceed and do ex­treme­ly well once they have the sup­port from with­in the school and, of course, from home.”

PTA pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer and so­cial work­er Nico­la Joseph, whose daugh­ter at­tends the school, al­so urged par­ents to be­come ac­tive par­tic­i­pants in their chil­dren’s ed­u­ca­tion.

“Pres­tige is a mind­set. I felt dis­cour­aged like you two years ago. My child is here, and she is play­ing pan.”

She en­cour­aged par­ents to join the PTA and sup­port school ac­tiv­i­ties.

“Sup­port is a cy­cle, and all par­ents must come and sup­port the school so that all the chil­dren at La Ro­maine can have a suc­cess­ful ed­u­ca­tion­al jour­ney.”

The pro­gramme con­clud­ed with stu­dents per­form­ing I Be­lieve I Can Fly on the na­tion­al in­stru­ment, draw­ing warm ap­plause from par­ents.

While La Ro­maine Sec­ondary has elim­i­nat­ed reg­is­tra­tion fees, costs at some oth­er schools re­main sig­nif­i­cant.

At Na­pari­ma Col­lege, par­ents are re­quired to pay a $1,500 NAP­SAC fee, which in­cludes $300 se­cu­ri­ty, $400 air con­di­tion­ing and main­te­nance, $400 gen­er­al main­te­nance as well as a $1,000 reg­is­tra­tion pack­age con­tain­ing the school tie, badge, tie pin and sta­tionery. Mono­grammed shirts cost be­tween $75 and $90 each, while the school bag is priced at $250. The phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion uni­form is pro­vid­ed as a gift by the Na­pari­ma Past Stu­dents’ As­so­ci­a­tion.

Par­ent Say­ee­da As­gar­ali, who post­ed on Face­book, claimed $3,000 was need­ed to reg­is­ter her son at AS­JA Boys’ Col­lege, while an­oth­er child at­tend­ing Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege re­quired about $1,800 in reg­is­tra­tion ex­pens­es.

At Cowen Hamil­ton Sec­ondary School, par­ent Sasha Ram­per­sad wrote that she paid about $1,000 for a pack­age that in­clud­ed five school shirts, var­i­ous T-shirts and PE pants.

Debe Sec­ondary School, mean­while, charges ze­ro reg­is­tra­tion fee as well as a vol­un­tary $100 PTA con­tri­bu­tion. The school al­so of­fers an op­tion­al sta­tionery pack­age with the school lo­go for $500.

Like La Ro­maine Sec­ondary, Debe Sec­ondary al­so pro­vides free text­books and uni­forms to stu­dents who need as­sis­tance, as well as free trans­porta­tion through the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry.

The Min­istry says no child should be barred from reg­is­ter­ing for a school if the school pack­age costs can­not be im­me­di­ate­ly paid.