Address to the Nation by Prime Minister Mottley

Address to the Nation by Prime Minister Mottley

Posted by Barbados Government Information Service on Thursday, January 2, 2020
Address to the nation by Prime Minister Mottley. (PMO)

Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley has reaffirmed Government’s commitment to removing the Common Entrance Examination as a means of children transitioning from primary to secondary school.

And, she said that Minister of Education, Technological and Vocational Training, Santia Bradshaw, was ready to lead the discussion with Barbadians this year on the island’s educational system.

Noting that “10 or 11 years is too young to ask a child to determine what their life should look like for the rest of their life”, Ms. Mottley said the discussion would assist in determining whether there was a need to expand primary education, create middle schools and or create schools of excellence such that every single secondary school that would take children if we do the middle school from third form on is a school of excellence.

“We do this conscious that as she [the Minister of Education] deals with formal education the country must also deal with non-formal education. Hence, the national training initiative that we have launched in conjunction with the Social Partnership so that we can get Barbadians to understand that every Bajan must know what excellence looks like; what excellence tastes like; what excellence feels like…and whether it is a car washer or permanent secretary; a waiter or minister; a nurse or lawyer, whatever station…that we must all know what constitutes excellence, train to it, and monitor the habit of excellence over the next seven years because that is how we will become world class,” she said.

julia.rawlins-bentham@barbados.gov.bb

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