Latest update April 6th, 2025 5:50 AM
Latest News
- High Court bars GRA from seizing Team Mohamed’s luxury vehicles
- Oil spill will hit Guyana’s shores before capping stack arrives to plug leak
- UN says 100 children killed or injured in Gaza every day since war resumed
- Guyana received US$605M oil money in first quarter of 2025
- ‘Tariff war’ spells grave danger for the Region – CARICOM Chair Mottley
Parents, educators to be sensitised on importance of arts and sports – Caricom official
There is a dire need for parents as well as educators to be sensitised in order to recognise the value of experiences in the arts and sports. This state of affairs, was amplified by Officer charged with the Directorate of Human and Social Development at Caricom, Ms Myrna Bernard, during the opening ceremony of the 24th Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) meeting at the Pegasus Hotel last week.
Caricom’s Myrna Bernard
She disclosed that at a technical meeting of education and culture that preceded the COHSOD meeting, the call for sensitisation was made. This move, she noted, was seen as not only important for the development of children in the specific areas, but also to enable “contribution of these multiple intelligences to performance in the traditional academic areas.”
The joint engagement, according to Ms Bernard, particularly provided for a rich exchange of ideas and perspectives on how the two sectors (culture and education) could work together to realise not only the specific objectives of the cultural industry strategy but also the more holistic development of the ideal Caribbean citizen.
It was recognised, for example, that in some Member States, the de facto curricula in primary and secondary schools increasingly focus on purely academic areas. This, Bernard highlighted, has been to the detriment of other areas of development such as physical education and sports, music and drama. It was therefore deduced that “this situation is one being fuelled, among other things, by the orientation and messages sent through our assessment systems”. Bernard also stressed the need for sensitisation.
Of note during the technical deliberations was the move by representatives of Guyana to share experiences with regard to the “preliminary, positive and palpable results from an experiment in the use of art to address discipline challenges in one school,” according to Bernard.
Moreover, the agenda for the recent COHSOD forum was designed in order to focus particular attention on the strategy and action plan for the cultural industry and the role of appropriate resource development from the earliest stages. In fact, the call for such attention was emphasised at the 22nd COHSOD which had focused on Culture, Youth and Sport.
According to Bernard, that COHSOD meeting had first considered the cultural industry’s strategy and recognised the need for joint consideration focus to the development of new skills sets, if education at all levels is to be relevant to personal development and to the new skills sets required for innovation and competitiveness.
The 24th COHSOD meeting was therefore aimed at directing attention to some of the specific challenges which, Bernard said, “are now plaguing and diminishing our efforts at human resources development. I refer here in particular to the issue of escalating violence in schools and those issues also relating to health and development such as the changing epidemiology of childhood obesity, also issues such as teenage pregnancy.”
And though intended to focus primarily on issues of education and culture, the recently concluded COHSOD meeting was geared at continuing to highlight the importance of integrated strategies encompassing all sectors.
This, Bernard noted, comes even “as we grapple with ensuring that our education and culture systems play their roles in the creativity and innovation that is a major imperative for the development of our Region.”
The meeting also served to highlight the value of continued functional cooperation among Member States as a viable means of addressing the collective human development agenda. It was noted by Bernard that Member States have been active participants in this process even contributing to the technical expertise of their officials in the development of regional public goods to facilitate the implementation of solutions. This collaboration she described as “a fine example of regional integration at work.”
According to Bernard, the regional social and development agenda is one which is shared and greatly facilitated by “our development partners and relevant institutions working along with Members States and the (Caricom) Secretariat.”
Similar Articles
THE BLUNT OF THE DAY
Sports
Features/Columnists
This must not be our hour of humiliation
Peeping Tom… Kaieteur News- There are moments in the history of nations when fate lays before them a choice not of... more
The U.S. “Joining” the Commonwealth: an unreasonable expectation
By Sir Ronald Sanders Kaieteur News- Recent media stories have suggested that King Charles III could “invite” the United... more
Weekend Cartoon
