By Pandit Satyanand Maharaj
Congratulations to Anuskha Singh, her parents and the Principal and Staff of Gandhi Memorial Vedic School on placing first in Secondary Eximaination Assessment.
The sad thing is that this information could only be accessed after invoking the child’s right to know her results ! Up to now no real excuse has been given as to why the top Students refused to be named by the Minister and no we do not buy what was being sold as an excuse that there was a mix up the year before and two medals had to awarded !
While the Rowley led PNM administration was applauded for appointing bright and vibrant Richie Sookhai to the Senate it must now bend its head in shame for denying a young bright Indian Hindu child the accolades she has worked so hard for.
Our education system is based meritocracy, it is based on excellence in education. On the day of the exam it is you and the paper nothing more. She excelled and she deserved to be celebrated. I am though saddened for the other 199 students who will always wonder how they placed.
Minister Dr. Nayan Gatsby-Dolly sites that to avoid trauma the results are not made public, however it is not as though they are naming the children, who scored below 40% ! That would understandly be traumatic for the children concerned and the PNM Government .
Thank God for Basdeo Panday who’s UNC administration gave us the right to query our marks and access information pertaining to ourselves, if it were not for this bit of legislation this child would never have accessed her marks and would never have know that she topped the country!
Dr. Rowley himself is himself an outstanding academic and so to Dr Gatsby-Dolly. I am yet to understand why they would deny a child her just due !
Why was the Government hiding the results? How can you recruit young talented Hindus and at the same time try to hide the results of Hindu children as the top performing SEA student and deny the Vedic board and teachers their day in the sun!
Now more than ever parents must use the courts to protect ourselves ! If you feel you were denied a position based on bias, find refuge in the courts. We must never forget the Maha Sabha radio Licence and Trinity Cross issues that was fought at the highest courts, the Privy Council ! There are also so many cases where Government denied promotions to qualified individuals based on a whim or fancy that had to be settled in court ! There has over the years been a systematic abuse of power by the PNM Governement to deny Indians their place in society and now they are doing it to our children. Why are we not more outraged !
Congratulations to MP Sadam Hosein who guided the family through the fact finding mission and sought justice for his constituent.
The lesson is clear, all clear thinking citizens must band together to stand together because in Trinidad and Tobago every creed and race do not yet find an equal place !
God bless all our students
Yours Respectfully
Pundit Satyanand Maharaj
Spiritual Head Satya Anand Ashram Aranguez
21st January 2023
Ps. I wrote a piece on this which is included for refrence .
Give the Children their due!
The government decision to withhold the merit list of the students who have past the SEA examination is both a disappointment and vexing to say the least, the reason put forward by the Minister of Education seems to me to be without merit.
When was the decision made? Was it a cabinet decision? Were the stakeholders in education consulted TUTTA, the denominational boards, the NPTA, did they know in advance? Why was this decision dropped on an unsuspecting public on the day of the results? Why dash the hopes of the high performing children who were looking forward with anticipation to being on the national merit list.
Is it now public policy to stop celebrating excellence in performance so that underperformers won’t feel badly about their performance?
Perhaps there something more sinister at work, the PNM have had a history, a pattern of denying and depriving students who have deserved it over the years by cutting scholarships, removing scholarships from being based on merit even secret scholarships that evades public scrutiny and interrogation!
Our education system is one that is based on meritocracy when we remove the element of competition what we are in fact doing is dumbing down the system making it difficult to track true growth and development of these students as they journey through high school and beyond.
The sea merit list is now subject to manipulation. Based on past experience, we the public have good reason to suspect governments involvement in this manipulation. Interestingly enough there has been no scientific study and data to support this decision, not by UWI or UTT or any other local body or researcher.
We are left to wonder is there more in the mortar than the pestle? Is this non-disclosure policy because of the dramatic decline in top performance from 3% to 0.47% ? Is the overriding reason really the continuing poor performance of the Ministry of Education as the number of students scoring under 30% in sea increases and the decrease in performance overall the Minister of Education was quick to point out in another article that 50% of the students scored on the 50% and this was a worldwide trend instead of taking responsibility for the failure to deliver even during COVID on excellence in education!
The blame was laid squarely upon COVID but the response to COVID was man made and so it shows quite clearly that the government failed the students in managing education in COVID.
There is a danger in the new precedence being set by the Ministry of Education! Will the minister now withdraw participation in international benchmark tests in language and mathematics since it is quite common that this country underperformsin these tests? Now that Ministry of Education is prepared to remove objectives and targets that set standards for schools to aspire could they name the study that shows the same? Where is the evidence that’s sea list traumatizes students and teachers in fact it is a great honor to have your name appear on the list.
I make an appeal to the Minister to reverse her decision and name the students so that they may properly celebrate their achievements.
Yours respectfully
Pundit Satyanand Maharaj
Satya Anand Ashram Aranguez
4th July 2022