The Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (TSC) con­tin­ues to in­flict great harm on the na­tion’s ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

One year is a long time in pol­i­tics. It is even longer in gov­ern­ment. This week marks one year since Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last at­tend­ed a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, a de­vel­op­ment that has prompt­ed the Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (MATT) to seek talks with the Prime Min­is­ter re­gard­ing what it de­scribes as a lack of for­mal me­dia avail­abil­i­ty.

The prayers launch­ing yes­ter­day’s Sec­ond Ses­sion of Par­lia­ment and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pos­i­tive pro­jec­tions were in­struc­tive.

Yes­ter­day, many of our cit­i­zens ob­served the long­stand­ing tra­di­tion of plant­i­ng on Cor­pus Christi. There is a wide­ly held be­lief that any­thing plant­ed on this holy day will flour­ish.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s elec­tion as one of the 10 non-per­ma­nent mem­bers of the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (UN­SC) is, with­out a doubt, a sig­nif­i­cant diplo­mat­ic mile­stone and a ma­jor for­eign pol­i­cy achieve­ment for T&T and the re­gion.

Last Wednes­day, I lis­tened to plans by the Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism for growth to US$2 bil­lion in ex­ports from T&T by 2027, and $5 bil­lion by 2030. Very am­bi­tious! They al­so had tar­gets to dou­ble the cur­rent tourism growth from 6% and a tar­get for in­vest­ment that was sec­tor-spe­cif­ic for US$3b by 2027, with a hefty tar­get of $9b by 2030. It was a plan to get the non-en­er­gy sec­tor to fill the breach caused by low en­er­gy pro­duc­tion and forex short­ages due to re­duced en­er­gy rev­enue.

To­day, as Trinidad and To­ba­go ob­serves the Feast of Cor­pus Christi — a sa­cred oc­ca­sion for the Ro­man Catholic and An­gli­can com­mu­ni­ties — we are re­mind­ed of the pro­found sig­nif­i­cance of the Eu­charist and the pres­ence of Je­sus Christ in Holy Com­mu­nion, which is cen­tral to the faith and spir­i­tu­al lives of many.

For decades, suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions have treat­ed pub­lic trans­porta­tion with a de­gree of lais­sez-faire ne­glect.

The first day of the planned three-day na­tion­wide maxi taxi protest has ex­posed the ex­tent to which this coun­try’s pub­lic trans­porta­tion sys­tem is op­er­at­ing on a frag­ile foun­da­tion.

I grew up in Wood­brook, sur­round­ed by pots of Old Maid. They were my moth­er’s favourite flower and the dozen steps lead­ing up to our house had a pot of Old Maid at each end. They served not on­ly as dec­o­ra­tion but as a sort of bar­ri­er pre­vent­ing small chil­dren from falling. De­spite this, I tum­bled over and land­ed on my glu­teus max­imus. Not hav­ing much of that, I dam­aged my coc­cyx and hob­bled around for days, push­ing my pos­te­ri­or out to lim­it the pain.

As the Joshua Sama­roo-Ka­ia Sealy po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion per­sists, the ma­jor fo­cus over the past week has been on pro­test­ers who per­ceive there to be un­fair treat­ment in the mat­ter, with a manslaugh­ter charge cur­rent­ly be­ing lev­elled against Sealy.

Po­lit­i­cal par­ties make many promis­es on the cam­paign trail to con­vince the pub­lic that they are best suit­ed to gov­ern, as hon­ey at­tracts more vot­ers than the vine­gar of re­al­i­ty.