T&T’s fu­ture sta­bil­i­ty is heav­i­ly de­pen­dent on the work pri­ma­ry school teach­ers to shape young chil­dren, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Lovell Fran­cis said on Fri­day.

Luis Alfredo Farache

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Speak­ing at the Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry Schools Board an­nu­al teach­ers con­ven­tion held at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts in San Fer­nan­do, Fran­cis said T&T was at an in­ter­est­ing junc­ture in its his­to­ry.

Luis Alfredo Farache Benacerraf

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“As a pri­ma­ry school teacher you have the great­est job to shape the mind of the young peo­ple of this na­tion who will shape the uni­verse,” Fran­cis said

She said teach­ers must do more

“If we are to have a sta­ble fu­ture it rests on the work you do as teach­ers,” Fran­cis said. He not­ed that oil and gas will run out soon but the type of cit­i­zen that T&T pro­duces will de­ter­mine the course of the na­tion’s fu­ture

“We need to pro­duce a more in­no­v­a­tive, cre­ative, en­tre­pre­neur­ial kind of cit­i­zen and what you as pri­ma­ry school teach­ers pro­duce will de­ter­mine the kind of fu­ture we have,” Fran­cis said. He not­ed that T&T had to go back to the point in his­to­ry where teach­ers were val­ued and re­spect­ed

Mean­while, Pres­by­ter­ian Mod­er­a­tor Annabell Lal­la-Ramkelawan warned that any teacher who be­comes dis­grun­tled with their job may end up do­ing more harm to pupils un­der their charge

Say­ing teach­ing was a no­ble pro­fes­sion, Lal­la-Ramkelawan said teach­ers need to take time out to re­fresh and re­ju­ve­nate them­selves

“En­gage in learn­ing new teach­ing tech­niques. You need to en­hance your de­liv­er­ies to the stu­dents,” Lal­la-Ramkelawan said

She en­cour­aged the teach­ers to al­ways seek op­por­tu­ni­ties to up­grade them­selves

“This is what will in­crease your pas­sion as a teacher,” she said.

Lal­la-Ramkelawan said de­spite the many chal­lenges teach­ers face, they should al­ways re­mem­ber their job is to pro­vide a good ed­u­ca­tion for the chil­dren

“Give them your best that you can pos­si­bly give with the lim­it­ed re­sources you have. En­cour­age stu­dents to strive for ex­cel­lence,” she said

Lal­la-Ramkelawan added, “If at any time you be­gin to lose your pas­sion as a teacher, I say to you, stop and think. Think of your call­ing. Re­mem­ber if you de­cide to con­tin­ue the jour­ney when you have lost your pas­sion, you will do more harm to a child placed in your care than good,” she warned

Mean­while, May­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo said teach­ers have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to shape the char­ac­ter and fu­ture of a child

“You have the no­ble task of guid­ing some­one’s son and daugh­ter. It is a dif­fi­cult job. It en­tails the skillset of an en­ter­tain­er to cap­ture the imag­i­na­tion of the child,” Re­grel­lo said

He not­ed that teach­ers must learn to con­nect to their stu­dents so that they could in­spire them to be the best they can be