Caribbean educators gather in Belize
With a Prime Minister who spurned the traditional portfolio of finance in favour of being Minister of Education, Belize is well placed to host a gathering of regional educators. This morning I sat in on a meeting that seeks to put the Caribbean on track with a major United Nations initiative.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
Today as Literacy Day is observed worldwide, UNESCO reports that there are still eight hundred and sixty-two million people who do not know how to read or write…some of them are Belizeans. While there are many reasons why some of our citizens remain illiterate, the Ministry of Education says it is becoming clear that teachers need to be better trained in the teaching of reading and writing.
Ernest Raymond, Dir. of Projects, Min. of Education
“Basic to education, without being able to read and write and comprehend, a child cannot successfully pursue their education at the primary, secondary, or even the tertiary level.”
UNESCO says because everyone has a right to education, everyone must have a say in the process of decision-making when countries are preparing their national education plans. It is on that premise the UNESCO office for the Caribbean is helping education ministries to ensure that the Education for All initiative that was approved at the 2000 World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal is fully integrated into the countries existing development plans.
Today, the three-day regional meeting officially opened in Belize.
Director for the UNESCO office in the Caribbean, Helene?Marie Gosselin says the forum will be based on the E.F.A. goals.
Helene?Marie Gosselin, Dir., UNESCO Caribbean Office
“One of course is concerning expanding the early childhood education. The second goal is by 2015 to allow all children, particularly girls, I would think that here we would all agree also particularly boys and children in difficult circumstances and those of ethnic minorities, can have access to free, compulsory, but also good quality education. The third goal, as we all recall, is ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met through equitable access to appropriate learning and life skills programmes. The fourth goal concerns a fifty percent improvement in levels of adult literacy?and I think that we have discussed a bit of that yesterday. The fifth goal concerns eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education, as well as achieving gender equality in education by 2015. And this is surely going to be a major challenge here in the Caribbean. And finally the sixth goal: improving every aspect of the quality of education. “
Prime Minister and Minister of Education, Said Musa, says the Caribbean has made great steps in making sure that education is available to all; however, not all children make it to school.
Prime Minister Said Musa
“Whether because of the opportunity cost of going to school among the poor, or true lack of physical space in the classrooms, and an even greater challenge is to keep them in school, for we all know that there is still an unacceptably high absentee rate and dropout rate.”
Musa told the regional educators that school must be a vital and exciting part of the daily lives of our students. And they must be provided with the right skills because it is important to remember that in the Caribbean two-thirds of the population is under the age of thirty.
Prime Minister Said Musa
“Youth can play an important role in national development if provided with the right tools, the learning and the empowerment to employ those tools, and a supportive environment in which to use them. If not, the energy and vitality of youth if left un-harnessed or if marginalized, can have a dramatic negative impact on social and economic stability.”
Fourteen Caribbean countries, including Belize, are participating in the forum.
The meeting runs through Wednesday.
