Transfer system failing students

IMAGINE a child being bullied so badly she fears going to school. Imagine that child’s parents appealing to a dean for help but getting none. Imagine the situation escalating to the stage where the child is taken out of the school entirely. Imagine the parents applying to the Ministry of Education for a transfer and encountering a maze of red tape and runaround. Then, imagine two years passing, as the girl’s dream of education fades.

Sounds like a fantastical nightmare, right? It isn’t. For at least one 14-year-old from Calvary Hill, Arima, it’s been her reality since she passed SEA in 2023.

The details of the report carried in this newspaper on November 10 about this girl’s plight should put all to shame. Fearing for her safety, her parents signed forms and withdrew her from classes. They were given referral forms to take to a ministry office in El Dorado. An official police report was filed. Then, for an entire year, nothing. By January 2025, the child was enrolled in a private school, where she scored an average of 75 per cent. But her parents ran out of funds. Now, she languishes at home.

Shown these materials and reached for comment, Minister of Education Michael Dowlath told this newspaper, “Yes, I remember it. The girl from Arima. Did they send the information to my office? The ministry has a lot of bureaucracy, and we’re trying to deal with it.”

But even before Dr Dowlath became the minister earlier this year, the family had been in contact with a range of PNM officials under the last administration, to no avail.

We live in a country in which politicians boldly plan to overhaul the skylines of our cities, construct massive towers for the Ministry of Education in the capital city, and squabble over whose vision of “development” is better, while being unable to put basic systems in place so that a child in need can be catered to.

Sadly, this terrible case is not an isolated one.

“I’ve heard about a few similar cases,” disclosed former TTUTA president Martin Lum Kin in a recent interview.

“The Ministry of Education has a committee that meets occasionally to deal with transfers, but it’s not enough. At one time, there was an arrangement between the principals of the schools. Then it became an arrangement with the school supervisors. Now, it’s the committee.”

In today’s world, bullying is hard to prevent; the government has put cops in schools to mixed results.

But there is absolutely no reason why a child should be waiting two years for a transfer. This dismaying case is a test of basic procedures. It is a test the state is failing.