Walters urges boys to stay in School

An appeal has been made by Minister of Rural Transformation, Information, Postal Services and Ecclesiastical Affairs Selmon Walters to all stakeholders of the Education Revolution to do all that it takes to keep young men in school.{{more}}

Walters, who made the original call at the handing over of facilities at the St. Joseph’s Convent Marriaqua on Monday, reiterated the need for young men to stay in school and for parents and teachers to play their part, on Wednesday, January 7th, at the second handing over of Basic Needs Trust Fund (BNTF) funded Projects at the St. Martin’s Secondary School in Kingstown.

Walters sent out a ‘wake up call’ to young boys and men in schools to remain in the institutions, in order to become more successful in life.

“I am going to ask all the young men and young boys – do not drop out of school; please always come to class and do well. Because if you don’t you have a tendency to end up either in the prison, in the mental home or somewhere in the hills where we don’t want you to be.”

“This is not a put down for you, because if you don’t do as well as you should, you will find as you go into the world of work you can’t really get a top job.”

The former educator lamented that in most work environments, especially the civil service, there are more female workers than male.

According to the Minister, statistics show that when boys remain in school they do just as well as girls, but they are failing to stay in the classrooms long enough to reap the rewards of the Education Revolution. He wondered aloud if the boys should not be given the same opportunities in schools as girls as an incentive for them as young men to stay in school. “I taught for twenty years, and sometimes we tend to be more lenient to the girls than to the boys. When the boys do badly in some schools we cane them, but for the same offence we don’t cane the girls, do we? Maybe we need to address those things and make sure that everybody gets the same treatment within the schools.”

He challenged parents and teachers to pay close attention to both sexes when it comes to their education. “Let us go for the young boys. Let us make sure that we give them the same opportunity. If we don’t we will have a real serious problem in our society. That is one problem that we have to address- and the schools are the ones who are to see that this happens.” (JJ)