 The recent launch of the Mandarin pilot program also saw the donation of Mandarin textbooks to the Ministry of Education by the Taiwanese government, who is funding the project. The St. Mary's College and St. Joseph's Convent are two schools selected to undertake the pilot with a view to expanding to other secondary schools on the island. The program will only be introduced at the Form 1 level and is expected to run for the next two to three years. Ambassador of Taiwan to St. Lucia, His Excellency Peter Shen, says the introduction of Mandarin in schools will help facilitate Taiwan's scholarship programs as more St. Lucia's show interest and are being accepted to pursue studies in his country. The Mandarin Language textbooks, Less Than Chinese, presented today were published by Taiwan's Overseas Community Affairs Council, OCAC, which is suitable for the elementary and junior high school levels. Their goal is to cultivate students' ability to use Mandarin to communicate in everyday life. Mandarin learning opens up a new world and new markets for young people to explore. We sincerely hope that through the adoption of the Mandarin textbook provided by Taiwan, teachers and students will have a better learning experience. Minister with responsibility for education, Honorable Sean Edward, says the decision to start the Mandarin program is guided on the one hand by the fact that the Caribbean Examination Council, CXC, is currently in the process of devising Mandarin curricula for testing and, on the other hand, the minister says, by the principles of mutual respect, understanding and friendship, given that the Republic of China Taiwan has been very gracious to St. Lucia, providing technical support in many areas, including education, agriculture, healthcare and ICT integration. As a government, we are seeing that quite apart from preparing our children to do examinations that will determine where they stand in comparison to their peers in the region and elsewhere, we are preparing them to be global citizens. And preparing a child or a young citizen to become a global citizen. They need more than just the traditional subjects that we are accustomed to teaching from kindergarten. And we have recognized the need for our children to be able to speak more than just the native language. And it is against that backdrop. We have agreed to incorporate the teaching of Mandarin in our school system. Education Officer for the Curriculum and Materials Development Unit, Camdu, Gennady George, says the Department of Education, Innovation and Vocational Training is aware of the benefits of the introduction of Mandarin into the school curricula, and as such wants to capitalize on possible future synergies that could be forged, she says the Mandarin book donation is one such example. Ultimately, we wish to have our students sit the test of Chinese as foreign language, which is an internationally recognized certificate at the end of this program. Now, although Mandarin is piloted in several of the territories, it is not taught extensively within the region, and therefore we had no textbooks for teaching this subject as we wanted to implement the program here in St. Lucia. So because of this, we solicited assistance from the Embassy of the Republic of China, Taiwan with assistance from Miss Lu, the Mandarin teacher, who provided guidance in helping us to select the textbooks. Miss George says the introduction of Mandarin strategically adjoins with the planned introduction of Quail Instruction within the education system. She says the Embassy of Taiwan to St. Lucia has provided two Mandarin teachers from Taiwan to help with the rollout of the program and to prepare for the next stage following the pilot. From the Communications Unit of the Ministry of Education, Sustainable Development, Innovation, Science, Technology and Vocational Training, I am Chris Satney reporting.