$6.1m for Pan in Schools Programme

FOLLOWING a meeting with the executive arm of the Ministry of Education (MoE) on Thursday, PanTrinbago president Beverly Ramsey-Moore promised to collaborate in a much more meaningful way re the development of the Pan in Schools Programme, through an IADB programme.

She said the original five-year contract that ends in August but is looking forward to the renewal, promising too, to deal with the challenges they had in the past, that included the lack of proper accountability.

A $6.1 million contract for the Pan in the Schools Programme has been signed and was announced yesterday at a press conference hosted by Education Minister Anthony Garcia. The money will be spent for the maintenance of pans in 118 schools and to provide 25 of those schools with 16-piece ensembles.

Ramsey-Moore said Pan Trinbago stands ready to work with the Multicultural Music Programme Unit of the ministry, under which the programme falls, to provide the instruments, supply the tuners and arrangers etc.

Admonishing a reporter at the conference who referred to pan in schools could be noisy, Minister Garcia said: “It is important that we dispel pan music as noise. It must never be determined as noise, rather, it is the hum of the industry.” Regarding water shortages in several schools, the minister said: “There is a problem with water by everyone in the country. It is not something that should be politicised for cheap political points. We have protocols in place to deal with the situation in schools.”

He spoke of crisis management units in each school that liaises with the ministry, Wasa and the fire services to alleviate such problems. But that in any event, the problem is not widespread.

Regarding the UTT teachers who protested at the ministry yesterday Garcia said the ministry will meet with human resource officers soon but the real problem is that the graduates’ content is not up to standard.

The minister said the training in the secondary sector should be done by UWI graduates while UTT graduates should be placed in primary schools. But the ministry will having identified gaps in the programme the ministry is working towards its resolve.