Tremendous success

EDUCATION Minister Anthony Garcia yesterday told stakeholders that the Laventille/Morvant Schools Improvement Project has been a tremendous success

The project was developed after the Prime Minister visited the St Barbs Basketball Court three years ago, as an intervention programme for students of the Morvant and Laventille areas, who face an environment of high criminal activity, poverty and parental apathy.

The project’s mission is to produce students willing to use their talents and abilities to contribute to their personal growth and national development. The four components are infrastructure and aesthetics; parenting in education; reducing violence and promoting discipline; and literacy/numeracy, teacher training and development.

At the ministry’s stakeholder engagement symposium at the Hyatt Regency in Port of Spain, Garcia told the gathering he was happy to say the project was succeeding thanks to these four pillars upon which “we are building to improve the live of these young students.”

He made a telling statement from his teachers’ training college days: “We must never forget that we teach children. That is the most important initiative of any teacher. We in education must understand the fact that we teach children, principally, and in teaching children there are certain aspects that we must bear in mind always. And one of those is the hidden curriculum.”

He told teachers what they do, what they say and how they carry themselves will have a tremendous impact on their charges, so it is their responsibility to lead by example.

Remarking that some of the children can’t read or write but know every lyric to a Buju Banton song or a soca/calypso, he ended with a passionate plea: “I urge on behalf of the people who are affected in the 25 schools, all I ask this morning is that we exert optimum efforts, professionally, productively and in some cases emotionally, in order to marry those with the project and the resources that we have. And I know if we do that this project will have achieved its mandate.”

The secondary schools targeted in the project are Malick, Morvant/Laventille, Russell Latapy, South East Port of Spain and Success Laventille, while the primary schools include Bethlehem Girls’ RC, St Philip’s Government, Our Lady of Laventille, Laventille Boys’, Beetham Excel, Bethlehem Boys’, Rose Hill RC, Morvant New Governmentt, Hokett Baptist, Piccadilly Government, Success RC, Chinapoo Government, St. Dominic’s RC, St Barbs Government, Laventille Girls’ Government, Lower Morvant Government, St Hilda’s Girls’ Government, Escallier AC and Gloster Lodge Moravian.