Denominational Schools: Why is Dowlath ducking us?

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

The As­so­ci­a­tion of De­nom­i­na­tion­al Boards of Ed­u­ca­tion (ADBE) is ques­tion­ing why Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath has failed to meet with the body to dis­cuss press­ing is­sues af­fect­ing schools, in­clud­ing staff short­ages, in­dis­ci­pline and sup­port for spe­cial needs stu­dents.

In a state­ment last week, the ADBE said it had for­mal­ly re­quest­ed an ur­gent meet­ing with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion af­ter re­peat­ed at­tempts over the past year to en­gage the min­is­ter failed to ma­te­ri­alise.

Some mem­bers of the ADBE are the An­ju­man Sun­nat-ul-Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA), the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS), the An­gli­can School Board and the Catholic Dioce­san.

The as­so­ci­a­tion, which rep­re­sents 23 de­nom­i­na­tion­al boards and over­sees 43 of the coun­try’s 134 sec­ondary schools and 341 of 477 pri­ma­ry schools, said dates for meet­ings had pre­vi­ous­ly been sug­gest­ed but lat­er post­poned, with no con­firmed en­gage­ment to date.

“The ADBE now rais­es a fun­da­men­tal and press­ing ques­tion: Why has a meet­ing not been grant­ed, de­spite mul­ti­ple re­quests and pri­or sched­ul­ing, es­pe­cial­ly at a time when sig­nif­i­cant de­ci­sions con­tin­ue to be made with­out con­sul­ta­tion with a key stake­hold­er?” the as­so­ci­a­tion asked.

The body ar­gued that, as own­ers of the schools un­der their con­trol, de­nom­i­na­tion­al boards re­main “a ma­jor part­ner in the na­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem” and should be con­sult­ed on poli­cies and ad­min­is­tra­tive changes im­pact­ing schools.

It warned that the lack of struc­tured di­a­logue was un­der­min­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the min­istry and de­nom­i­na­tion­al boards.

“The ab­sence of struc­tured di­a­logue at this lev­el un­der­mines the col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach nec­es­sary for ef­fec­tive ed­u­ca­tion­al lead­er­ship and pol­i­cy im­ple­men­ta­tion,” the state­ment added.

The ADBE al­so ex­pressed con­cern that sev­er­al re­cent ini­tia­tives were an­nounced pub­licly with­out pri­or con­sul­ta­tion with de­nom­i­na­tion­al boards.

Among the ex­am­ples cit­ed were the in­tro­duc­tion of AI text­books and the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to trans­fer main­te­nance re­spon­si­bil­i­ties for schools to the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties.

“These de­vel­op­ments were not dis­cussed with or com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the Boards be­fore they were pub­licly an­nounced,” the as­so­ci­a­tion said. The body out­lined a list of ur­gent mat­ters it wants ad­dressed in dis­cus­sions with the min­istry, in­clud­ing staff short­ages, act­ing ap­point­ments, in­dis­ci­pline in schools, short­ages of fur­ni­ture, de­layed grant dis­burse­ments and the role of Busi­ness Op­er­a­tions As­sis­tants (BOAs).

The as­so­ci­a­tion al­so high­light­ed con­cerns over sup­port sys­tems for spe­cial needs stu­dents and what it de­scribed as poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween the min­istry and de­nom­i­na­tion­al boards.

It said re­cent pol­i­cy and ad­min­is­tra­tive changes af­fect­ing schools were al­so cre­at­ing con­cern among school ad­min­is­tra­tors.

“To pro­mote re­spect­ful en­gage­ment and pro­duc­tive di­a­logue, the As­so­ci­a­tion be­lieves it is im­por­tant to ad­dress these mat­ters di­rect­ly in a for­mal meet­ing with the Min­istry,” the ADBE said.

The as­so­ci­a­tion called on the min­istry to “prompt­ly con­firm a spe­cif­ic date” for the meet­ing, stress­ing that time­ly con­sul­ta­tion was crit­i­cal to en­sur­ing de­ci­sions tak­en in the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor were “well-in­formed, in­clu­sive and in the best in­ter­est of the na­tion’s stu­dents.”

De­spite its crit­i­cism, the ADBE said it re­mained com­mit­ted to work­ing with the min­istry and oth­er stake­hold­ers to im­prove the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

“The As­so­ci­a­tion is com­mit­ted to col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Min­istry and all stake­hold­ers to strength­en the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” the state­ment said.

At­tempts to get a re­sponse from Min­is­ter Dowlath have so far been un­suc­cess­ful.