COP on Education

Education

There will be trained Guidance Counsellors in every school within the first year of office.

The Teaching Service Commission will be comprehensively reviewed with a view to increasing its composition and capacity. This will speed up the processing of applications for Teaching positions, speed up the appointments and transfers of Teachers and Principals and ensure the backlog of vacancies of Teachers and Administrators for both primary and secondary are addressed completely, in the shortest possible time.

For schools which have not yet been de-shifted and converted, the process will have a timeframe and a site selection process for the construction of new schools will take into consideration the location of all the new housing settlements.

We will revisit those schools which have been de-shifted or converted by announcement to ensure no continuance of the second class status they have inherited.

Character Education will include all forms of value-based, religious and cultural instruction, experiences and activities that contribute to the development of individual character and will be given a higher level of importance in the school curriculum.

We will revisit Teacher preparation programmes to ensure that appropriate modules of character education are included to allow fuller professional development of our Teachers.

PNM has already gotten money from the IADB for this. It was included in the SEMP and what have we gotten for US$150Million.

Public Debt was explained to me as borrowing from the future. Your children's future.

My suggestion is rather than studying all that is wrong, I'm not disputing there is a lot of %&* in the system. How about studying what is right. And I am not talking about that inane propaganda with St. Andrews. Those kids have access to a sanitary, reliable water supply and parents who can read.

Lets start off with the best fifteen (roughly 10%) schools you can find, go to the principals and give them whatever they want to take on another school.

The first year they train their successor.

The second year they move and identify a second.

Third year they stay, to embed the changes they have made.

Fourth year they move on again.

Yes, that's right I am only advocating trying to embed change in fifteen schools in a five year term. Fifteen schools are around 10,000 students per year.

But by slowing down and allowing for that omnipotent factor called time you might just manage to institutionalise change just enough to create a legacy.

- I am but a dwarf, if I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants