By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 01, 2021
Beloved is an excruciatingly intense novel about the slave experience written by Toni Morrison, an acclaimed African-American writer. She is the only Black woman to have won the Nobel Prize in Literature. She also won a Pulitzer Prize for Beloved in 1987. In 2012 President Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award that can be bestowed on a civilian.
Continue reading Beloved
By Raffique Shah
September 13, 2021
For the second time in as many months I ask a question that is pertinent to this country’s future path, one that we need to answer because it is critical to everything else we do as we forge a road to recovery in the aftermath of the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic and the near-collapse of the national economy. It is this: are we satisfied with our education system which, give or take a tweak here, a turn there, has remained a hugely expensive relic of colonialism that refuses to die 60 years after independence.
Continue reading Education for those who want it
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 24, 2021
A few weeks ago I listened to young Jamaican student Deane Weatherly talk about the importance of Queen Nanny of the Jamaican Maroons to her and Jamaican national life.
Queen Nanny, the leader of one of the country’s maroon groups, defeated the British in the 18th century, thereby establishing Nanny Town, a maroon town in the Blue Mountain region.
Continue reading National heroes and history
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 01, 2021
In 2001 when UNC was in power, I objected to its endorsement of Dr Bhoe Tewarie as principal of The University of the West Indies (UWI). I argued that Tewarie was not sufficiently prepared for such a position, his having only attained the status of “lecturer” in his academic career. Readers can determine the truth or falsity of my position.
In May 2017, when PNM recommended that Robert Bermudez serve as Chancellor of the university, I depicted his appointment in a satirical manner since I couldn’t take his appointment seriously. I believed he wasn’t the man for the job.
Continue reading Black & Brown People Beware
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 19, 2021
Last Thursday, in his response to a letter written by 23 Afro-Trinbagonians about the placement of Black students in our secondary schools, Kamal Persad, coordinator of the Indian Review Committee, responded: “It is clear the under-performance of Afro-children in the education system is still at the top of the black agenda. Accordingly, these 23 persons of African descent adopted an unmistakable black race position” (Express, January 14).
Continue reading A Black Race Position
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 22, 2020
Last Sunday 19 distinguished citizens (call them endorsees) recommended that the SEA be replaced since it no longer serves the interest of the students it is supposed to serve (“Replacing the SEA.” They claim that our school system has not extricated itself from its “colonial inheritances in education.” The SEA examination through which we place our students into secondary schools is outmoded. It originated in the UK in 1904, the year Joseph de Suze finished writing Little Folks Trinidad, a pioneering educational work.
Continue reading Overcoming Education Inequality
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 29, 2020
Alberta Smith (not her real name), my dear friend, has been a primary school teacher for thirty years. She didn’t like last week’s article and didn’t put water in her mouth to tell me so. She sent the following response which I was free to reproduce once I omitted her real name. She wrote:
Continue reading In Defense of Teachers
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 20, 2020
As a teacher, I was interested in the exchange between Anthony Garcia, the minister of education (MOE), and Antonia De Freitas, president of the TTUTA, with regard to how best to continue teaching our nation’s pupils while schools are closed because of the coronavirus pandemic. The MOE wanted to “determine the extent to which students had access to learning materials while schools were closed” (Newsday, April 11) so it could determine the best platform to deliver online teaching for our pupils.
Continue reading “All Ah We in This Together…”
By Stephen Kangal
March 04, 2020
Questions and Legitimate Concerns for the High-Powered Authors of the Statement on the Education of Children of African Origin
(First Published in the Express of 24 and 25 January and 5 and 6 February 2020 in the Newsday)
The foregoing list of questions and concerns is geared to be succinct in my reply. I cannot address all the mentioned points in full in the interest of brevity. These authors dealt with cosmetics and were unfair to the thinking community of T&T.
Continue reading Responding to the Alleged Conspiracy Against African Students
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 24, 2020
Education has an important role to play in getting us out of the degenerating situation in which we find ourselves. By education I do not mean the mere acquisition of mathematical and scientific knowledge and reading skills. I also mean the cultivation of an inner faculty that allows us, individually and collectively, to act purposefully within the social whole.
I was excited when Dr. Roland G. Baptiste, chairman of the Catholic Education Board of Management, in speaking about the performance of the Catholic schools under his remit, observed: “I left St. Mary’s College many years ago, and I believe at this time of my life that the most important aspect of my education [was/is]…the system of values the school left with me” (Express, February 18].
Continue reading Rethinking Our Approach to Education