KEVON FELMINE
Se­nior Re­porter
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes says that while Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley does not know he is re­spon­si­ble for the in­equitable ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem he com­plains about, tech­ni­cal vo­ca­tion­al stud­ies are lack­ing.
At an Op­po­si­tion me­dia con­fer­ence in Port-of-Spain­on Sun­day, Haynes said that af­ter eight years in Gov­ern­ment, Row­ley on­ly now dis­cov­ered that the school sys­tem does not cater to all stu­dents.

She said Row­ley told the pub­lic that some­body needs to do some­thing about the cur­ricu­lum that is fail­ing stu­dents. 
Haynes said when the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress raised ques­tions about tech­ni­cal vo­ca­tion­al stud­ies in schools, the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) spoke about it.

She said she posed ques­tions in Par­lia­ment about the num­ber of tech­ni­cal vo­ca­tion­al in­struc­tors em­ployed by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE) and va­can­cies as of April 30.

The re­sponse was 550 in­struc­tors and 150 va­can­cies.
"Plumb­ing, for ex­am­ple, is an im­por­tant skill set that can cre­ate a very lu­cra­tive ca­reer if you get in­struc­tion and utilise the sec­ondary school sys­tem. There are no in­struc­tors in the pub­lic school sys­tem. Ze­ro in­struc­tors in the pub­lic school sys­tem, but they claim they have on­ly eight va­can­cies. Are there on­ly eight pub­lic sec­ondary schools?"
Haynes said the ac­tions of the PNM cre­at­ed the prob­lem Row­ley sees to­day. She said that the Peo­ple Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion of 2010-2015 im­ple­ment­ed tar­get­ed in­ter­ven­tions, such as psy­cho­me­t­ric test­ing, to de­ter­mine de­vel­op­men­tal needs and spaces the school sys­tem need­ed to cater to the stu­dent's needs.
"You had an in­com­ing PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion in 2015 that, in­stead of im­prov­ing on or im­ple­ment­ing fur­ther any of the pol­i­cy de­ci­sions tak­en by a pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion, de­cid­ed what they need­ed to do was scrap and go back to any­thing that ex­ist­ed be­fore."
Haynes said the MoE does not use da­ta to dri­ve pol­i­cy mak­ing and how they as­sess which schools need plumb­ing in­struc­tors. She said the PNM cut the Gov­ern­ment As­sis­tance for Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion pro­gramme and re­duced na­tion­al schol­ar­ships. She said they treat ed­u­ca­tion as a priv­i­lege for those who can af­ford it rather than a right.
Speak­ing about the shoot­ing of Car­lon Patrick at the Cumaca RC Pri­ma­ry School in Va­len­cia last week, Haynes crit­i­cised the MoE’s re­sponse, ban­ning par­ents from en­ter­ing the school com­pound. Patrick, a par­ent, was drop­ping his son off when a gun­man ran through the school gate and shot him.

Speak­ing in the Par­lia­ment last week, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, said the de­ci­sion was to en­sure the school re­mained a safe en­vi­ron­ment.
But Haynes said when a shoot­ing in­ci­dent hap­pened near the Rose Hill RC Pri­ma­ry School in Laven­tille last No­vem­ber, which had chil­dren and teach­ers cow­er­ing in their class­rooms, the UNC said it was a mat­ter of time be­fore these kinds of vi­o­lence moved from out­side the school to in­side. 
“Any rea­son­able per­son can see that with­out in­ter­ven­tion, we would end up there.”
She told Row­ley if he was un­able to do his job, say so and call the elec­tions.