By INVERA ARJOON Friday, March 19 2010

NEWS of Government’s planned pilot project to introduce same-sex schools at 20 selected secondary schools was met with mixed reactions yesterday.

Vice-president of the National Parent Teacher Association (NPTA) Raffiena Boodoosingh said the assocition supports the ministry’s decision. “We have had a problem with boys under achieving and we need to reach them. We believe in trying all avenues to solve the problem,” Boodoosingh said.

One just needs to look at the crime rate and realise that young men are failing, she added.

Joan Hinds, president and vice-president of the PTA of the San Fernando East Secondary and Pleasantville Secondary schools respectively, both of which are in the pilot project which is to begin in September, responded positively to it. Hinds said a PTA meeting was held at San Fernando East Secondary following Education Minister Esther Le Gendre’s announcement on Tuesday and they are ready to run with the idea.

“We accept that the denominational schools have been performing well in the vein of discipline and academics and hence we have no quarrel with it.”

Professor of Sociology at the University of the Southern Caribbean (USC) Dr Daphne Phillips said her view is that while the examination results certainly show that denominational schools are doing better, their students come from better social circumstances.

“Those students come from households that are better off economically and offer more social support...same-sex schools are not going to solve some of the problems we have,” Dr Phillips said.

Dr Janet Stanley-Marcano who wore many hats at the Ministry of Education including Chief Education Officer and Director of Research and Evaluation, said there is research that shows male students’ performance can be enhanced when they are in single-sex classroom situations. “I imagine that it would be those research data that influenced the ministry’s position to address the issue of male underachievement in schools,” Stanley-Marcano said.