Dear Sir:
Saint Lucia has entered a sad, dark, and dangerous time in our history. For those of you who may think I sound alarmist or melodramatic, please take a dispassionate look at our education, health, security, social safety net, and other governance systems.
I will concentrate on some education issues that must be cause for acute consternation to every Saint Lucian. I will deal with some of the other issues in subsequent writings, but my immediate concern intensified during a conversation Sunday, October 20, 2019, with a CXC student attending one of our secondary schools.
Boy… I received a mind-jolting education from the teenager.
- How many of you know that some lab equipment for science subjects are not being provided to some secondary schools by the government?
- How many of you know that at least one secondary school (there may be more) does not have the requisite number of science teachers for Biology and Chemistry?
- Did you know that at least one secondary school has decided to have only the top 25 students sit the CXC exam in Biology because of the shortcomings herein mentioned?
- Did you know that despite the $10 million boost by Dr Gale Rigobert; several schools and their furniture are in a state of disrepair?
- Did you know that despite the facilities fees paid by secondary school students; students in at least, one secondary school is sometimes greeted with the sight of no toilet paper in the toilets?
- And did you know that students, in at least one secondary school, has been (and still is) raising funds to alleviate some of the problems herein mentioned?
Why, for God’s sake, are our children being made to suffer like this when our government gives away hundreds of millions of our money to its Friends, Family, and Foreigners?
Why is our government relegating our children’s education to the back burner while close to a $100 million of our money is lavished on a dubious ‘investor’, a racetrack, and horses?
I invite our two most intrepid journalists, Janeka Simon of CHOICE News and Miguel Fevrier of MBC to investigate what I have written. Don’t take my word for it. Start with the Entrepot Secondary School, and their CXC students, because the student I spoke with attends there.
When lip service [ with an accent ] is being paid to the importance of our children’s education by our elected officials, we need to know exactly what the deal is with the goings-on at our public schools.
Andrew Antoine
