Kamla congratulates athletes, scholarship winners

OPPOSITION Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar has congratulated Trinidad and Tobago athletes who won gold medals at two international events, as well as scholarship winners, on their achievement.

Decorated javelin thrower Keshon Walcott won gold in the March 18 Men’s Javelin at the Yellow Jacket Invitational in Atlanta, Georgia.

Sprinter Jereem Richards also wongold in the Men’s 400-metre event at the World Athletics Indoor Championship in Belgrade, Serbia on March 19.

At the United National Congress (UNC) Virtual Rport on Monday night, Persad-Bissessar took time off from politics to congratulate the two outstanding sportsmen.

“Keshorn Walcott – can we give him praise, winning gold on Friday? And Jereem Richards, the first Trini to win gold at the World Athletics Indoor Championship.

“He broke a record of another great Trini, the late Deon Lendore, as we also remember his work in the field of sports.

“We have great talent, we have great human resources in this country but this government cares not, and will not do what is right for all manner of our men and women.”

She also congratulated the scholarship winners who excelled in the CAPE 2021 examination, saying their achievement was noteworthy as they would have had to overcome tremendous challenges caused by the pandemic, “and the on-again-off-again with educational policies by this wicked government. But they did well and we congratulate them.”

She compared the 100 scholarships awarded for 2021 to her People’s Partnership government's 500 scholarships for excellence.

“Our whole thrust was that in education, because we understood and still understand that education is the only passport out of poverty. Education is the only key to a better quality of life. A large part of the government I lead, we concentrated on education.”

In the first UNC administration, under former prime minister Basdeo Panday, she said, education was also a priority, but not so under Dr Keith Rowley's People’s National Movement (PNM) Government, where scholarships and GATE have been significantly reduced.

“Because they do not understand that you have to reward the best and the brightest for a country to grow and develop. They don’t seem to understand that. They don’t understand what it is to be rewarded for merit.”

Instead of scholarships, which indicate very clearly who is the best and brightest, she said, the PNM has created bursaries so it can can hand-pick who benefits, similar to the scholarship fund under a former PNM administration, from which Laurel Lezama, now PNM PRO, benefited.

“Always that secret way of governing and administering.”

She said unemployed parents and bright but poor students relied on GATE for thier tertiary education, and promised to "reopen the GATE" when the UNC formed the next government, saying this will not be long, as the PNM is imploding.

Demonstrating what she said was the Rowley Government's refusal to invest in children and the future, she referred to the much-maligned laptop programme for Form One students, started under her administration, which the PNM stopped when it assumed office in 2015.

Had that programme continued, she said, today TT would have been at the top of the ladder when the pandemic struck and online learning became the norm.

“You would have had your devices. Narrow-minded, small-minded, no vision, and the only mission that they have is to butter their bread.”

She also recalled opposition to all children getting a place in a secondary school under the Basdeo Panday administration, when she was Education Minister, to drive home her argument that education is not a top priority of this government.

“Under the Panday regime, we built all these schools. We said every child must get a place, not one child must be left behind. Now, in the pandemic, blame pandemic, blame pandemic, blame Kamla and blame everything else."