Deosaran letter irresponsible

THE EDITOR: The letter in the June 22 Newsday headlined “Garcia should be responsible” demonstrated high irresponsibility. I do believe the letter proved the opposite. Ramesh Deosaran, professor emeritus, author of Education, Crime and Inequality, showed irresponsibility in the following ways:

* Using less than three per cent of the school population from less than four per cent of the existing schools to formulate his grand thesis – that schools in TT are mismatched and dysfunctional and where sexual deviance is a big problem.

* Making a case that if “interventions” were put in place in 2008, we would not be experiencing the problems we are now, insinuating at the same time that current Education Minister Anthony Garcia, who was named in the headline, is to be blamed, when he only assumed office in 2015.

* Using editorial fervour to support his case when even a simpleton knows that every editorial writer has his/her own agenda (intentionally or not).

* Supporting his arguments with the ranting of the TTUTA president and the expressions of candidates campaigning for office in the upcoming TTUTA elections.

* Bringing the President of the republic, the former president and the archbishop of Port of Spain into the mix to support his dubious arguments. A “fail” for use of sources.

* Expecting that whatever interventions were put in place in 2015 should have cured the education system and the society of all its ills. Deosaran surely knows that the education system is a product of the society in which it operates and the curative work has to be done in the society as well.

On the other hand, Garcia, BA Executive Diploma in Leadership and Management, educator with more than 40 years’ experience at primary, secondary and tertiary sector education, has been very responsible.

* He met a system in chaos in 2015 and took immediate steps to remedy the situation – in many different areas. In terms of decreasing the violence in schools, the Ministry of Education provided centres with the required trained personnel to take care of those students displaying the most deviant behaviour. That made the school a safer place for other users and allowed for individual and specialised attention to those who needed it most. The majority of them successfully re-entered the system.

* The results of this intervention have been successful and are ongoing. The requests by principals for extended suspensions have been greatly reduced. Anyone who wishes can get the required data to support this claim from the ministry or by using the FOIA.

* He is not guided by every video that resurfaces on social media. He does his research, examines the time stamp and realises that many of these postings are recycled, sometimes from foreign countries and used by those bent on destabilising the government or for plain sensationalism.

* He is aware and has made the point several times that some of the displayed negative behaviour has migrated to outside of the school buildings because the behaviour is no longer tolerated in the schools.

* He does not castigate and label the entire education system because of a few incidents in a few schools. He takes into consideration the fact that there are 125 secondary schools in TT and that misbehaviour of approximately three per cent of the school population in less than four per cent of those schools does not reflect the condition of the education system.

* He does not wash his hands of any matter. That is editorial sentiment which has nothing to do with fact. Instead of branding the system or the school for that matter as deviant and dysfunctional, Garcia focuses on the situation and puts measures in place to deal with it.

Responsibility is truth. Very little in that letter to the editor is true, except perhaps for reference to the goodly doctor’s own research a few years ago. Most researchers know how to use data to make anything sound the way you want it to sound. We know that the writer of that letter is a good researcher. All of us do what we have to do but responsibility is truth, Deosaran.

SAFFIYA KHAN, retired educator