Sadie Vernon High goes technical
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
It was only today that the newly constituted Sadie Vernon Technical High School was inaugurated, but already a total of two hundred and forty students are waiting for classes to start. The increase in number is due to the placement of third and fourth form students who were enrolled in Excelsior High School, but needed to be transferred following the restructuring of their school’s programme. Minister of Education Francis Fonseca says the formation of both Excelsior Junior High School and the Sadie Vernon Technical High School is based on one fundamental principle.
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
“What is in the best interest of those communities and the young people who attend those institutions. What is in their best interest, not what is politically expedient or what other people want us to do. What is in the best interest of those young individuals; that is the guiding principle that determines the decisions we make at the Ministry of Education… How can we best improve these institutions so that they best serve these communities and these young people.”
Sadie Vernon Technical High School is a co-ed institution that will offer a preparatory year for those students who may require the remedial support as well as the school’s technical vocational training.
Francis Fonseca
“The government has obviously a very important role to play. The government has to ensure that we provide resources. The facilities are available for these institutions; we provide teachers and other resources that may become available. So the government has an important role to play. The churches obviously have a very, very critical role to play as our partners in education in Belize. We have a very good system of education, a very good, strong, effective church-state system of education. It is not without challenge, but it is a good, effective system and we have to continue to build on that partnership.”
An official signing was held to record the transfer of ownership of the school from the Council of Churches to the Government of Belize and the Ministry of Education
Francis Fonseca
“Even though the Council of Churches is ceremonially handing over Sadie Vernon Technical High School to the Government of Belize, we will continue to work very closely with the Council of Churches. We will lean on them for their advice, their wisdom, for their experience in the running of this institution. We want to remain fully engaged with them.”
Signing on behalf of the Council of Churches was the school’s manager, Canon Leroy Flowers. Flowers spoke of reforms urgently needed for the system to be truly effective.
Canon Leroy Flowers, Mgr., Sadie Vernon Technical High
“If you noticed, over the past two years most high schools, and even tertiary levels have started a new thing in terms of everybody must come to summer school. Is it that our children are so dumb? Or is it that the curriculum is not being met? Or is it that the school year is too short?”
“Here at Sadie Vernon what we have been able to do over the years was begin a feed programme, because there were many students who came to school who were hungry. And if you are hungry, like we say in Belize, empty crocus bag can’t stand up.”
“I’ve known parents who actually have shown me books that they have not used at all. And then what is sad about it is that they have other children who are going to that high school, but can’t use it because the books have changed. Now I am saying that as educators, our educators can do better, yes, they need text books, but in this modern day and age of computers and all that where everybody is literate, I think we need to change the system.”
“Too many people are not trained as teachers and so they don’t know about methodology. They do have content, but the methodology… so the easiest thing to do is to get a book and you tell that child you do so many pages for homework and that’s about it. But it’s much more than that.”
“The think the whole matter of how government awards scholarships needs serious, serious re-evaluation. The government should set the priority, but government should not then be the judge and jury. Government should set the priority as to the areas that we need most and then get an independent body that does not have a relative or child or brother or sister who is going to apply for that post and then assign those. Because there are many children who today cannot take up these offers because they don’t have the wherewithal, they don’t have the connection, they don’t have the name, and so Belize as it was loses.”
Jacqueline Woods for News Five.
