A study in service

FOR ANNA Mahase, education was close to home.

Her maternal grandfather was the headmaster of a primary school run by the Canadian Presbyterian Mission, while her mother, Anna Chandisingh, met her father, Kenneth Mahase, when both were studying to be teachers.

According to the late historian Gerard Besson, Anna Chandisingh went on to become the first teacher of Indo-Trinidadian descent in 1918. On her marriage in 1919, she also became the first married woman to be allowed legally to teach, at a time when women were expected by society to stay at home, cook, clean, have children and not work outside the home.

If a penchant for trailblazing was something that flowed in the blood, Ms Mahase, who died last Friday at the age of 91 and whose funeral is today, was also a study in commitment to service, particularly in her role as the principal of the St Augustine Girls’ High School (SAGHS). She took up that post at the age of 28, on the eve of this country becoming independent in 1962. She remained for more than three decades.

“I got the impression her entire life was dedicated to the school,” the late playwright Freddie Kissoon once remarked. “It was her everything. She had found her purpose in life. It would appear that, if the occasion arose, she would lay down her life for the children.”

Ms Mahase was born in the village of Guaico, where she attended primary school before moving on to Naparima Girls’ High School, San Fernando. Afterwards, she studied at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Canada, graduating with a BSc and BEd. She received an honorary degree from UWI, St Augustine, in 1988, alongside figures such as George Maxwell Richards.

Her time at SAGHS saw her introduce Carnival celebrations as well as a steel orchestra. She oversaw a new science block.

But music, art and physical education were also compulsory. Mr Kissoon staged plays at the school, from Shakespeare to Beulah.

And yet a free-spiritedness existed alongside a reputation for strictness.

“She was a disciplinarian extraordinaire,” remarked activist and Newsday columnist Elspeth Duncan recently, “one who intimidated us merely by walking down the corridor, heels clicking on the terrazzo, face serious, eagle eyes scanning the surroundings.”

However, the educator’s service extended outside the classroom, and she occupied several key posts over the years, including at the Teaching Service Commission, as well as two stints as a temporary UNC senator.

But it is SAGHS and her time there that may well be her legacy, not only when we consider the school’s enduring high standards under a new generation of teachers, but also its notable alumnae, such as Minister of Education Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly.