Anna Mahase, noted educator and a former principal of St Augustine Girls’ High School (SAGHS), came from a non-conformist family lineage. It was a heritage that, in not very obvious ways, she carried on.
Mahase, who died last Friday at the age of 91, had the same first name as her mother, who was thus known as Anna Mahase Snr. That alone indicates a unique mentality, since it is typically men who name their sons after themselves.
Anna Snr published her autobiography, My Mother’s Daughter, in 1992. In 1919, she became the first Indian-descent woman to qualify as a teacher in Trinidad, an achievement she said helped further the education of other Indo-Trinidadian girls.
“In those early days all the teachers went out every morning to visit and bring out the children to school. I did my share of it and the result was that all the little Hindoo and Moslem girls began attending school when they saw a female East Indian teacher,” she wrote.
Her namesake daughter inherited this commitment to education from both parents. Ms Mahase’s father, Kenneth Mahase, was also a teacher. At a Thanksgiving function held to mark her retirement in 1992, the late Reverend Cyril Paul, then Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, said, “SAGHS to her is not just a workplace, but her life, her passion, her love, her fulfilment, and joy.”
Like her mother, Ms Mahase set her own milestones. She began teaching at SAGHS at 18 years old, the same age that her mother became a teacher. When she became principal in 1961, Mahase was the youngest principal in the country. She soon put her stamp on the school’s brand, so much so that “Anna Mahase” and “SAGHS” became virtual synonyms.
Despite her focus on school discipline and exemplary behaviour from her students, one of her first initiatives after being appointed was to set up a steelband. In 1964, SAGHS became the first secondary school in Trinidad and Tobago to have a Carnival celebration–a decision that surely got pushback from the church elders and, in all likelihood, not a few parents. Both steelband and Carnival were at the time seen as the antithesis of propriety. Yet this only shows that Ms Mahase was ahead of the times in pushing (and synthesising) the nation’s culture.
Again, this is a trait she inherited from her forbears. In his foreword to Anna Snr’s autobiography, literature professor Ken Ramchand notes that “the woman of Indian origin makes her Trinidadian nationalism absolutely clear”.
Anna Snr became the first woman to continue teaching after she was married. The regulations at that time mandated that “No married woman is to be retained on the staff of any Government or Assisted Primary school in the Colony.” John Morton, who laid the foundation for the Presbyterian schools in Trinidad, personally asked the Director of Education to remove the regulation on her behalf. Anna Snr went on to have seven children.
The daughter who would most closely follow in her footsteps never married and never had children. However, Anna Mahase’s influence extended to the thousands of women who passed through SAGHS during her 31 years as principal. That is the legacy she leaves behind.
A principal par excellence - Trinidad & Tobago Express Newspapers
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