Dear Editor
I read the editorial ‘Quality educational leadership’ (Stabroek News, September 17). Then, I re-read it. The editorial says that a primary school wants to have a cash crop farm, recycling and do lab work.
What is unclear is whether primary schoolchildren would be made to work on this cash crop farm to make the school cash sustainable. If that is the case then it is a blatant case of child labour being employed for economic reasons.
Citizens pay their taxes so that their children can enjoy the benefits of a free educational system. They do not need their children to be forced to till the fields at such an early age. While I agree that at a certain age children need to learn about work, primary schoolchildren do not need to be employed to work at such a tender age because the school has funding problems.
If young children are to be employed to till the fields then it would be better for parents to just send their young children out to work so that they, the family, can reap the rewards of their labour.
I am against primary schoolchildren being exploited to support a school which taxpayers support anyway.
Yours faithfully,
Sean Ori
