Fighting context

THE EDITOR: I was in attendance on the day that Minister of Education Anthony Garcia made the comment about fighting that has been making the rounds in the media.

What has shocked me is the fact that the Minister spoke for so long, spanning so many topics and yet the focus was that one statement. Interesting I have found it, because, to me, it seemed to be the most controversial sentence that he said. So that statement has been taken and a long-distance sprint has been done to support an agenda of negativity.

Here is what was missed though, the minister highlighted the importance of school supervisors in guiding the change of the conversation. He highlighted the importance of the supervisors in ensuring that they performed their due diligence and were champions of the good work that the schools they were in charge of were doing. The minister gave advice and used the fight statement to lament why the supervisors needed to step up and ensure that the positives in schools were highlighted and that, the new conversation that had emerged, was exactly why.

This level of attention was not given to the “Singing at the MoE” that the students of the Laventille/Morvant Schools’ Improvement Project was given.

Attention was also not given to the fact that the Ministry of Education circumvented the “no money” notice given by the Ministry of Finance for any end-of-year events and was able to have a fantastic event for staff that the ministers contributed significantly to.

Apparently, those do not deserve attention. Apparently, the focus should be one statement on students fighting in schools because, hey, that would be controversial.

Deanna-Lee Brown via e-mail