By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
February 11, 2012
The most intractable, vexing and perplexing problem in T&T is crime. And the raison d’etre successive governments have been unable and unsuccessful in dealing with this problem is primarily because they have all adopted a Euro-centric approach instead of an Afri-centric approach.
Continue reading Crime in T&T – Afri-centric Analysis
By Nalinee Seelal
February 03, 2012 – newsday.co.tt
POLICE officers last night charged Arlene Blackman — Principal of Blackman’s Private School in Maraval — with two counts of Cruelty to Children, under the Children’s Act, Chap 46:01, Section III(I), for allegedly placing the head of two students in a toilet bowl at her school and flushing it.
Continue reading Principal Charged with Cruelty to Children
8/7/2011 – barbadosadvocate.com
It saddens me to the core whenever I read articles such as the letter to the editor, written by Michael A Dingwall in the August 4 edition of this newspaper entitled ‘Black, but proud of what?’. If there is nothing for you to be proud of, maybe you should look in the mirror, and if you still cannot see anything to be proud of, do a little research into African history – there is plenty to know.
Continue reading Modern science owes much to African civilisations
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 20, 2011
Dr. Tim Gopeesingh, Minister of Education, is a gynecologist by training. He is not an educator. At the very least, his response to my inquiry proves his mis-understanding about how a Minister of Education functions. Anyone who has been following this controversy (See “Probe SEA Results” in the July 13 issue of and my subsequent letter to the Minister of Education, July 17 Trinidad Mirror) knows that I only sought to bring to the Minister’s attention the statistical improbability of 14 students from one class placing within the first one hundred students in the recent SEA examinations.
Continue reading The Mis-Education of Tim Gopeesingh
July 14, 2011
Dr. Tim Gopesingh, Minister
Ministry of Education,
Port of Spain
Trinidad
Dear Dr. Gopeesingh:
I am sure that you were pleased as I was to learn that 14 students from one class in the Chaguanas Government School placed among the top one hundred students in the recent SEA Examination. Initially, my instinct was to accept the result and to applaud the exemplary teaching that takes place in that school; that is, until allegations of cheating were brought to my attention. Although I wanted to disregard this unfortunate conclusion, my desire for fairness led me to contact a statistician from William Patterson University in New Jersey, USA, and a mathematician from Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, to determine the statistical possibility of such a result occurring.
Continue reading Letter to Minister of Education on SEA Results
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 13, 2011
“How come one school could get 14 passes in the top one hundred places of the SEA,” asked the irate caller on the phone, and drew her own conclusion: “Dey had to tief.”
After she calmed down she explained her anxiety. She was referring to the fact that 14 students from Chaguanas Government School placed among the top one hundred students at the recent SEA examination. To her mind, that was impossible.
Continue reading Probe SEA Results
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 04, 2011
Part 2 – Part 1
Joseph Winthrop Holley, the founder of Albany State University and the son of a former slave, was born in Albany, Georgia, which explains why he wanted to build a school in his native town. He attended Revere Lay College in Revere, Massachusetts which changed its name to the Boston Evangelical Institute before it merged with another school to form Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary that my former wife attended. During the latter part of the 1980s I visited that seminary often.
Continue reading The Souls of Black Folk
By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
April 19, 2011
While the People’s Partnership (PP) government’s National Mentoring Programme should be widely lauded, much more needs to be done/analyzed in order to confront and deal with the ubiquitous “criminal gang culture” in T&T.
The fact of the matter is that the proclivity to commit crime among this country’s “at risk” youths is values-oriented-related-driven.
Continue reading Mentoring T&T’s Youths
By Corey Gilkes
April 14, 2011
I cyar keep up wit dis government nah, is from one thing straight to the next. Last Monday, one of the many announcements made by the Minister of Education was that there was going to be a review of the way religious education is taught in the nation’s schools. From all indications the aim is to create at the very least a greater understanding of the various faiths that exist in the country. Now it is no secret that I maintain a strong disapproval and dismissal of all organised religion; I consider all the major faiths to be bigoted, misogynist, patricentric murder cults, very authoritarian and largely steeped in anti-intellectualism. Like the very learned Denis Solomon I too consider religious education (oxymoron anyone?) to be a form of child abuse. But that’s MY opinion of them. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it is right and it definitely does not mean that everyone should adopt that stance.
Continue reading On Religion and Schools
By Corey Gilkes
March 28, 2011
This is a somewhat expanded version of an article I wrote for a Ghanaian-based website dealing with issues relating to women’s sexuality (WHY Good Christian Girls “Shouldn’t Have Sex”: The Issue of Virginity). It was actually in response to a blog comment dealing with abstinence. Looking at the comments by some of the readers it was really astounding to see just how alike we are — albeit in this case, I would have liked if it were not so.
Continue reading Sex, Guilt, “Sin” and Social Control