 19 primary schools under this phase of the OICS Pearl have received grant funding of $15,000 to tackle specific areas within their school environment which can be improved to positively affect learning at the various institutions. The continuous school and system improvements CSSI pilot initiative will benefit at least two schools in each of the eight educational districts on the island. The OICS program for educational advancement and relevant learning OICS Pearl is a five-year initiative executed across the sub-regional alliance aimed at increasing equity, access and the standard of education in all member states. Project Assistant for St. Lucia's component of the OICS Pearl, Horace Popo, says the keyword in this educational initiative is continuous. It starts with a keyword continuous or continual, which means that whatever that we learn now with this $15,000 grant, it is something that is going to be looked at and it's going to be copied going forward. So these are the things that we are working on right now and we are trying to engage the principals, engage the district education officers, engage the parents, engage the wider community so that they can see the benefits and they can be part of the completion of those projects. To facilitate the successful execution of the program in the 19 schools, project officials have been meeting with focal points within the educational system. Mr. Popo says this serves to ensure the schools are receiving the proper guidance to implement their unique projects. So what we want to do is have a meeting and discuss where we are now with those different components and see how we can streamline and move forward more efficiently. We have a course coming on for our creative arts teachers in the primary schools. So we want to get this package, we want to have everything working as it should as we go forward. He says initial feedback suggests that the schools involved are making full use of the opportunity. Some of the schools have already become the procurement, some already have the items. So what's going to happen now is they are going to make those items part of the teaching and the next step would be Ministry of Education officials are going to go into the schools and see if the actions that the schools promise to implement have been actioned out the way they said they would and more importantly, if we are getting the positive results that we want for our children. The U.S. $10 million OECS Perl funded by the Global Partnership of Education, GPE, seeks to also increase the quality of teaching and learning in the OECS region, especially in light of the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the education sector. The Perl will also enhance curriculum and assessment, strength and leadership and management, institutional strengthening, monitoring and evaluation. From the Communications Unit of the Department of Education, Innovation and Vocational Training, I am Natalia Popo-Joseph reporting.