Education Minister to review attendance, school violence at end of term

Minister of Education Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly says her ministry intends to meet with different stakeholders to assess different challenges and achievements faced over the school term.

Speaking with reporters after the launch of the Act Now health campaign at the Ministry on St Vincent Street, Port of Spain, on Friday, Gadsby-Dolly said as the school term approaches its end, a post-mortem review will be done to focus on areas of improvement.

School will close for the July-August vacation on July 8.

She said data will be pooled from weekly reports, and officials at different levels will meet to discuss ways of optimising efficiency.

"We met with them (stakeholders) already about one month into the term...we heard concerns, we heard recommendations, we heard what was working for them as well. and we will meet with them again. so that we would have that level of post-mortem coming from the practitioners on the ground.

"We collect attendance data, school violence or indiscipline data, We collect teacher attendance data, school feeding data. We collect all of that. On a weekly basis a report is scheduled at the ministry to be able to look at what is happening across the board.

"So all of that will form part of our discussions with stakeholders at the end of the term."

Gadsby-Dolly said upgrades to school infrastructure will also be discussed during the vacation.

"Certainly upgrades to school infrastructure is an ongoing thing. We do have quite a number of schools – over 100 – with some critical issues that have to be addressed.

"When schools opened in April, quite a number of them would have had sewer issues...two weeks into the term. maybe one week into the term. when the full complement of students came back. "So we have quite a number of things that will be addressed during the vacation."