http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/TIM_CLAMPS_DOWN-119375599.html
Education Minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh has issued a directive to all principals, "with immediate effect", to cease holding any extra-curricular activities, sporting events and corporate-sponsored events during school hours. He said the schools will have to first get the Ministry of Education's approval for such events.
Gopeesingh made the announcement while addressing the closing of the National Consultation on the Primary School Curriculum at the Cascadia Hotel in St Ann's. He told stakeholders at the event that in three months last year, there were 26 holidays for various reasons, which was taking too much time away from classes. He said in order to optimise class hours, he was directing that extra-curricular events can no longer be held during school hours.
"Now, all these CEOs (chief executive officers) and NGOs (non-governmental organisations) and corporate bodies and corporate entities, and all these primary schools cricket league and secondary schools cricket league and football league and so on, I have no difficulty with that. But don't take the children out of the classroom," Gopeesingh said.
"You have your competitions and so on, (but) you could manage (them) on a weekend."
Gopeesingh also announced he was putting a stop to the events organised by corporate bodies during school hours.
"All these corporate bodies who want to have a spelling bee competition here and a debating society there, and you're taking the children with the teachers out of the school time, I think that should be a thing of the past. So I have become autocratic in this respect. I have indicated that with immediate effect, probably about three weeks or four weeks ago, I ceased all of that," the minister said.
He said corporate bodies were self-serving when they hosted these events.
"This competition and that competition and taking the teachers away and taking the students away, of what benefit (is that)? We know where we are going, we know where we are in education, we know where we want to go.
"So if a corporate body wants to do something in education, they do it for their personal gain and benefit...to say 'look, this is a corporate body, and I am doing this in education,'" the Minister stated.
Gopeesingh said he will soon meet with 200 corporate bodies and NGOs to inform them of his decision. He said any school wanting to host such events in the future must get prior approval from the ministry.
"Any principal or supervisor here today, we want to ensure that whatever comes to you for application or anything, you send them to the ministry (first)," he said.
Gopeesingh said many events must now be shifted to weekends or after school hours, including the district consultations that the ministry wants to have with teachers and students.
However, Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) president Roustan Job, who was also at the event, said Gopeesingh was seeking to take away the discretion of principals. He said TTUTA planned to raise the issue with the minister.
"The principals are supposed to have a certain autonomy in the schools, and the minister has to tread carefully because you are going to demoralise school principals, and you can't do that. So we may have to speak to him about that," Job said.
He warned the minister that teachers would not be willing to give up their weekends to attend programmes, and the ministry should reconsider this position.
