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Winner of the??inaugural BNB Righstart Speech Contest, Sulaimaan Ukadia (Al Falah Primary) stands with other finalists (L-R), Tia Lewis (West Terrace Primary, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, NULL, NULL, 0); Tia Collymore (St. Alban’s Primary, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, NULL, NULL, 0); Delano Edwards (Cuthbert Moore Primary, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘, NULL, NULL, 0); Aliyah Reid (West Terrace Primary) and Stacia Martindale (St. Alban’s Primary).

Following the success of its Rightstart Primary School Speech Contest, the Barbados National Bank (BNB) has been encouraged to enter into talks with Government on displaying the indigenous literary work of Barbadians.

Minister of Education and Human Resource Development, Ronald Jones, made this appeal to management of that bank, last weekend, as he addressed the finals of the competition held at the Combermere School Hall.?? He said: "An organisation like the BNB… should continue to give back even more to the citizens of Barbados, particularly the young people of Barbados."

While acknowledging that the island was "seeing the growth of persons writing in our schools and actually providing good books," Minister Jones added, "…I do not believe that we know enough about our indigenous writers. We find one [here and there] but let’s bring them together in total collective so that the whole of Barbados can come out and see the fiction and nonfiction; the biography; the autobiographies, the poetry, the prose, whatever we have."

The Education Minister commended BNB for giving primary school students an opportunity to use language to become "part of those who are heard" and noted that students who had been through the preliminaries to the finals of the competition had gained a lot.?? "They are more confident now and they can speak better," Mr. Jones stressed.

He expressed the hope that the BNB Rightstart Primary School Speech Contest would progress further into more primary schools as well as secondary ones. "I hope that it would encourage schools and other organisations to utilise the development of formal oral language skills; to stimulate critical thinking and problem solving as we work together to help our youth to see themselves as leaders, as entrepreneurs; and visionaries within their homes and communities," the Education Minister contended.

Meanwhile, BNB’s Senior Manager Administration and Operations, Juta Thorpe, said the Bank had sought to use the contest as a medium "through which we can instill in our children from an early age, the need to speak standard English and develop their language skills, the ability to articulate their position, and the confidence to speak publicly".????

She added: "It is on this premise that we have hosted this contest which has been very well received with schools already expressing great interest in being a part of next year’s programme.?? We believe that through this programme, we have once again demonstrated our commitment to our youth who are indeed the future of this country.?? We hope that through this investment in our youth we have assisted in advancing plans for innovation in teaching with improved teacher quality and method, and student achievement as achievable objectives."????

jgill@barbados.gov.bb

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