Angry parents protest against “incompetent” principal in Corozal

Amid police presence, on the opening day of the school year today the parents of 23 students who attend Santa Clara 7th Day Adventist Primary in Corozal, made a bold decision to keep their children at home, not only for the day, but the remainder of the week.  One might wonder what parent would do that during the first week of the new school year.  Well the ones who stood their ground near the school say only parents who love their children would take that measure.  The parents are going one step further; they are threatening to transfer their children to other schools if the principal at the institution, Wilbert Tamay, is not replaced.

For most schools, 23 students might not seem to be much, but for a school whose entire population is only 80, that number should be significant enough to attract attention from the powers-that-be and the Adventist Mission, the school’s managers.  The parents were not afraid to carry signs with their thoughts about Tamay’s performance over the past six years.  They are upset about his tardiness, unaccountability of monies they say the school has collected, and the students’ dismal performance on the Primary School Exams.  According to one parent, of the nine students took sat the exam during the last school year, only five passed, and their grades ranged from 54 to 67 %.

To add to their worry, the parents say that they have been calling for a replacement for years and though they have gone to the General Manager of the Mission as well as to the Ministry of Education, they have gotten no tangible or satisfactory results.  They have fired off a letter to the Mission’s Education Director, Pastor Leslie Gillett, who has also not given them a response to their concerns.  And while the educational future of 23 students hangs in the balance, at least for the time being, the Ministry of Education’s only position on the matter is a lame one – that they are “monitoring” it because it is “an internal issue” to be dealt with by the Adventist mission.  By the time someone comes up with a solution, there might be even more students not attending Santa Clara 7th Day Adventist because according to the parents, there are even more parents whose patience is growing thin with every passing day.

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