Date of Award

1974

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

College

College of Arts and Sciences

First Advisor

Wilfred G. A. Futcher

Second Advisor

Ruth Murdoch

Third Advisor

Walter Douglas

Abstract

Statement of the Problem

In Trinidad and Tobago, about twenty-five to thirty thousand children of the ten to eleven-plus age group, in their attempt to obtain a free place in one of the government or assisted secondary schools, present themselves annually to write the Common Entrance Examination, a selective examination administered by the Ministry of Education and Culture. School places have been available, within the decade, for about 3,000 to 6,000 new entrants from the primary schools, but recently the number has increased to over 10,000 with the introduction of a two-shift system in new. Junior Secondary Schools. ' These efforts of the Government are to be highly commended, yet thousands of young aspirants to secondary education, who have an equal right to be properly educated, do not have alternative provisions made for them. The demands for secondary education clearly exceed the facilities and opportunities available at present. Though this is a current problem of many countries of the world, the fact remains that thousands of children are left to seek some second-rate education in poorly staffed and inefficiently equipped private institutions whose purposes and goals are limited to preparation for an external examination. Other children may turn to vocational classes without any direction or guidance as to what learning opportunities will enable them to realize the development of their potential. Still others stay on in the post-primary sections of their schools if there are sufficiently interesting programmes to hold them.

Limitations of the Study

The investigator wishes to note the need to limit his use of documents to those available at the Embassy of Trinidad and Tobago in Washington, D.C., the Library of Congress, The offices of the Organization of American States, the library of Michigan State University, the library of the University of Michigan, the library of Andrews University, published sources of documents, and sources which have been obtained by correspondence. He, however, draws attention to the fact of his having been born and educated in the area under study, of having been a teacher in the country for over twenty-five years, and of having previously made a study of education in Trinidad and Tobago as a requirement for the associate certificate of the College of Preceptors in England, in the subject "Educational Systems and Their Development Since 1900" (See Appendix F).

Subject Area

Education, Secondary--Trinidad and Tobago

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/theses/170

Download

Files over 3MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "save as..."

Share

COinS