By Raffique Shah
August 02, 2025

I am very confused by the problems many teenagers face as they come to the end of one cycle or other of the education system. Many moons ago when my generation ended our “schooling” we had a clear vision of what lay ahead.

Those among us who failed the Secondary School Entrance Examination—and there were options there—a significant percentage would move into the secondary school system by attending one of the many private secondary colleges. They would sit an entrance exam to the college of choice and, once successful, their parents would make payments to have them educated. Others who found that cumbersome would opt for what in today’s language is known as business studies.

Female students in particular would pursue office keeping, bookkeeping (that was simple accounts), shorthand, etc. Many boys also followed that path, but those who, in retrospect, seemed to have been the smarter ones, became tradesmen. They enrolled as apprentices in establishments from as small as the village motor mechanic, carpenter, mason, and so on. There was of course a significant number who never completed primary schooling. They were functionally illiterate and opted for menial jobs. A small percentage went into what would have been the fast foods of that era: channa sold in cone-shaped packets, sugar-cake, “mauby, press and sno-ball” as one calypsonian sang.

When I look at life now, I cannot help but think of how complicated we have made it with all our advancements in technology driving a constant need for more. More skilled technicians, more teachers, more healthcare workers, more and varied engineers, etc. Today, maybe 80% of those who enter the school system graduate in one field or another. Yet, when I listen to them talk, they sound functionally illiterate. They are people with some of the best first and second degrees out there sounding like they are no smarter than some of those who failed to make it past primary school back in my day.

I am not dismissing education in any form as being useless, nor am I suggesting the generations after mine are dumb. Some of the brightest minds in this country are born and nurtured in our school system in spite of all its weaknesses. In the energy sector where nationals of this country have schooled themselves into knowing and understanding it so well, they can work or find jobs that put them in the frontline of experts. Our doctors are among the best in the world. Our healthcare system, for all its faults, offers free services to the entire population, administered by highly qualified practitioners. Still, the structures of the society, especially as they pertain to health, seem to be failing. A percentage of the population is stricken by unmanaged lifestyle diseases and this has nothing to do with the quality of healthcare we receive. We have been eating and drinking ourselves to death, and here is where I find the contradiction.

I see highly educated people marketing some of the worst food you can consume insofar as they lack nutrients, and are laden with deadly fats and, most of all, sugar. I cannot reconcile people portraying young, healthy, educated Trinidadians and topping off five doubles with a red soft drink. Imagine these same educated people starting their Sundays with a large cup of coffee from one of the popular coffee houses, then moving on to a lunch of fried chicken and ending the day with copious amounts of alcohol. And, these are the engineers, doctors, lawyers, actuaries of tomorrow, and today.

I think the most disappointing aspect of educated but functionally sub-literate people is their inability to converse. They do not keep current with events taking place locally or globally, so there is no chance of conversation with them there. They have no interest in sport so there is no conversation to be had there either. The music they listen to is largely unappealing and unintelligible, but their choice nonetheless. So there is very little conversation to be had with many of these people. They are immersed in socialising with artificial intelligence online in make-believe worlds which has stunted their intellectual growth and taken from their ability to socialise outside of the Internet, which is as bad as it gets.

I note that the Minister of Education has added another week to their mid-year vacation. If I thought that they would use that time to physically move around, read a good book, play some sports, I would be happy they were given it. I regret I am not hopeful. In fact, over the past few years, I have grown to become apprehensive when I approach the younger generations because of the ones I dared approach and started conversing with—they all managed to smile, nod politely or hold a blank stare at just about any topic I thought they might have an interest in.

We are the world, but what of our children.