 It's interesting that I appear on the program to deliver brief remarks while sharing the vision that informed our very reason for being here today. So I shall endeavor to do as instructed. The privilege that one has by starting one's career, political career in opposition, is that it affords you the opportunity to scan the landscape, to pose some very critical questions, and to begin to contemplate the answers to the social ills that confront us. It is that kind of observation, introspection, questioning, and brainstorming that informed much of what you see represented in what today is the policy of the government of St. Lucia, but a little under two years ago would have been referred very simply as the manifesto of the United Workers' Party. As I continue to remind my colleagues, up until midnight on the 6th of June 2016, it was just that, the manifesto of the United Workers' Party. When the sun would have come up on the following morning, St. Lucia would have before it the policy statement of the new administration. For those of us who have yet to comb those pages, permit me to reference some of the policy statements that we have made therein. And at the heart of that document, whether it has to do with housing, or with health, or with education, the thrust of this administration is to ensure that every St. Lucia has access to quality health care, to a first class education that equips citizens not only to function in the national domain, but also regionally and internationally. Permit me to focus more exclusively on education. We know all too well that education in St. Lucia for a very long time has been the preserve of the rich and the wealthy. And I have always argued and lamented the fact that education in St. Lucia is too elitist, that you and I know of scores maybe hundreds of very talented St. Lucia's who have been relegated to the sidelines of our economy because they could not afford a proper education. My administration, this government, this minister of education is committed to delivering an education to every citizen regardless of his or her socioeconomic condition. That, I must confess, is what drives me every morning. That I know is the energy that informs much of what my other colleagues do in their respective space. So how do we cure the elitism in education? How do we ensure that those who perhaps missed that opportunity between the age of five and sixteen can be given a second chance? How do we ensure that the residents of Miku, Piero, Delce or Forsageac are not disadvantaged because of their geographic location and that they too can access St. Arthur Lewis Community College? How do we ensure that talented children from families where no one has had the benefit of tertiary education, a university degree, can be given that opportunity? How do we ensure that the children who come from homes where they do not have the privilege of a breakfast can still make it to school and access an education? How do we afford people who may have fallen by the wayside an opportunity to get up and start all over again what we call second chances? How do we afford persons who find themselves in sectors that are dubbed dying sectors have the opportunity for retooling or re-skilling or if they are to remain relevant for up-skilling? And Mr. Cordray is correct. The strategic vision of the education sector speaks to those issues. But what we are endeavoring to do with the hashtag Educate St. Lucia Initiative is to ensure that we are able to, one, create new initiatives that can correct the social ills that I have just referenced or two, harmonize our efforts such that we have a greater impact versus disparate activities in various pockets of the society that do not have the kind of turnaround that we anticipate. And three, how can we better harness the benevolence of our friends and partners in the international community, our local private sector, such that we can have that tremendous impact? Education is a right. For any society to evolve, to develop, to achieve some level of sustainability, we owe it to the population to be exposed to quality education. But I'm sure you acknowledge as much as I do that what could have been dubbed quality education in 1950 is not the same as quality education in 1960 or in 2000 or in 2010 or in 2018. And therefore it is no coincidence that yesterday when the National Principal Association met for their 34th convention, the theme that they chose was the principle of the 21st century colon bridging the digital divide. And I want to applaud you for choosing that theme because it tells me that you are in step with what the international political economy demands, that you are in step with what the Chamber of Commerce has been asking of us to do, that you understand that of necessity there must be a shift in what we've been doing over the last couple of decades. And I always hasten to issue this caution. I am not at all suggesting that what we are about to unveil under the rubric of Educate St. Lucia is absolutely new. And I know that there are many of you who long preceded me in this sector who will say, but we did this or we are doing this. We're not denying that. What we are suggesting is that we have targeted, purposeful, collective intervention, the marrying of resources and effort so we can have the boom effect that we want versus the trickling of effort in disparate corners in our society. For example, and I do not want to steal the thunder of the DPS as she invades the various elements of the program. The hashtag NAPSAC or backpack initiative. Admittedly, over the years there have been very kind, very generous institutions from various parts of the world who have donated NAPSACs and school supplies to their respective communities or schools or children who are economically challenged. But what we have discovered is that by marrying our efforts, by endorsing the initiative, we have had more private sector partners come on board, more communities from the diaspora come on board. The various consulates, high commissions and embassies came on board and our good friends from the diplomatic corps were able to marry that effort and so we've had greater impact collectively. Lifelong learning. We recognize all too well that the world before us is changing. There was a time that we could have satisfied ourselves with basic numeracy and literacy skills. When we speak of core competencies and when we speak of functional literacy in 2018, inevitably we must add digital literacy, computer literacy. And so in an evolving world we must make accommodation for such. We lament that there are so many job opportunities for artisans, masons, carpenters, tylers. And I imagine that we have some talent inland and I want to commend Mr. Samuel's and the TVET unit for the work that they have done in certifying these killed persons. Because as the world evolves and thanks to the various health and safety measures and insistence on compliance and standards, they too must be certified. And so I do not want to hear of another instance in St. Lucia where we have a major investment and the investor felt compelled to import labor. We owe it to our people to equip them such that they are best positioned that when those opportunities do arise that they can access those opportunities. And that is why I really must thank the Prime Minister and my colleagues from Cabinet for conceptualizing the hospitality and tourism program, the construction program and the wellness program that we will soon launch with a view to ensuring that persons in these sectors are well equipped and certified such that we can enhance their employability. Only a couple of days ago you would have learned of a call from the BVI for tradesmen to come and help with the rehabilitation of the hurricane torn countries. And Mr. Samuel's I'm hoping that our St. Lucia's who will offer themselves to go to the BVI are equipped with that CVQ. So we have a responsibility to give every St. Lucia a chance whatever his or her God given ability that we partner with that St. Lucia so that we can give them the best opportunity to eke out a living for themselves and their families. Many of you have been wondering why the nomenclature innovation in our ministry and you asked the science curriculum officers you ask the officers within the ministry the number of incidents we've had where we have hosted science fairs displaying the skilled talent and innovation of our young St. Lucia's and unscrupulous unsuspecting persons would come and effectively steal those ideas monetize and commercialize those ideas with no credit given to the innovator. That is why we are keen to partner with the Ministry of Commerce and other system ministries so that when we have those ideas we can walk them through the process of securing the intellectual property rights and getting the royalties deserving to them. So these are just some of the ideas that inform this initiative. My other colleagues will speak to the various elements but I want to thank all of you for being here for partnering with us. I will end by referring to the one closest to my heart and that is the hashtag first generation initiative on any given day. We are confronted with requests from students who wish to go away to study or who have started their studies and may have come into some kind of economic hardship and they ask of the ministry will you help me finance the completion of my studies or will you help me finance the undertaking and too very often we find ourselves having to say we simply cannot help you. I had the privilege of meeting with a young lady last February when I attended the OAS meeting for ministers of education in the Bahamas and that conversation led me to realize that there was tremendous opportunity out there and one such opportunity was to expose the institutions to the ACT exam which is the admission exam into colleges and universities that can also simultaneously afford you a full or partial scholarship depending on your performance. I really must applaud my team because immediately upon my return I shared the idea with them and today barely one year since that initial conversation we can boast of having embraced says Sir Arthur Lewis Community College. How do we ensure that talented children from families where no one has had the benefit of tertiary education a university degree can be given that opportunity. How do we ensure that the children who come from homes where they do not have the privilege of a breakfast can still make it to school and access an education. How do we afford people who may have fallen by the wayside an opportunity to get up and start all over again what we call second chances. How do we afford persons who find themselves in sectors that are dubbed dying sectors have the opportunity for retooling or re-skilling or if they are to remain relevant for upskilling and Mr. Cordray is correct. The strategic vision of the education sector speaks to those issues but what we are endeavoring to do with the hashtag Educate St. Lucia initiative is to ensure that we are able to one create new initiatives that can correct the social ills that I have just referenced or to harmonize our efforts such that we have a greater impact versus disparate activities in various pockets of the society that do not have the kind of turnaround that we anticipate. And three how can we better harness the benevolence of our friends and partners in the international community our local private sector such that we can have that tremendous impact. Education is a right for any society to evolve to develop to achieve some level of sustainability we owe it to the population to be exposed to quality education. But I'm sure you acknowledge as much as I do that what could have been dubbed quality education in 1950 is not the same as quality education in 1960 or in 2000 or in 2010 or in 2018. And therefore it is no coincidence that yesterday when the National Principal Association met for their 34th Convention the theme that they chose was the principle of the 21st century colon bridging the digital divide. And I want to applaud you for choosing that theme because it tells me that you are in step with what the international political economy demands that you are in step with what the Chamber of Commerce has been asking of us to do that you understand that of necessity there must be a shift in what we've been doing over the last couple decades. And I always hasten to issue this caution. I am not at all suggesting that what we are about to unveil under the rubric of Educate St. Lucia is absolutely new and I know that there are many of you who long preceded me in the sector who will say but we did this or we are doing this. We're not denying that. What we are suggesting is that we have targeted purposeful collective intervention the marrying of resources and effort so we can have the boom effect that we want versus the trickling of effort in disparate corners in our society. For example, and I do not want to steal the thunder of the DPS as she unveils the various elements of the program. The hashtag NAPSAC or backpack initiative. Admittedly over the years there have been very kind, very generous St. Lucia's from various parts of the world who have donated NAPSACs and school supplies to their respective communities or schools or children who are economically challenged. But what we have discovered is that by marrying our effort, by endorsing the initiative, we have had more private sector partners come on board, more communities from the diaspora come on board. The various consulates, high commissions and embassies came on board and our good friends from the diplomatic corps were able to marry that effort and so we've had greater impact collectively. Lifelong learning. We recognize all too well that the world before us is changing. There was a time that we could have satisfied ourselves with basic numeracy and literacy skills. When we speak of core competencies and when we speak of functional literacy in 2018, inevitably we must add digital literacy, computer literacy. And so in an evolving world we must make accommodation for such. We lament that there are so many job opportunities for artisans, masons, carpenters, tylers. And I imagine that we have some talent inland and I want to commend Mr. Samuel's and the T-Vert unit for the work that they have done in certifying these skilled persons because as the world evolves and thanks to the various health and safety measures and insistence on compliance and standards, they too must be certified. And so I do not want to hear of another instance in St. Lucia where we have a major investment and the investor felt compelled to import labor. We owe it to our people to equip them such that they are best positioned that when those opportunities do arise that they can access those opportunities. And that is why I really must thank the Prime Minister and my colleagues from Cabinet for conceptualizing the hospitality and tourism program, the construction program and the wellness program that we will soon launch with a view to ensuring that persons in these sectors are well equipped and certified such that we can enhance their employability. Only a couple of days ago you would have learned of a call from the BVI for tradesmen to come and help with the rehabilitation of the hurricane torn countries. And Mr. Samuels, I'm hoping that our St. Lucia's who will offer themselves to go to the BVI are equipped with that CVQ. So we have a responsibility to give every St. Lucia a chance whatever his or her God-given ability that we partner with that St. Lucia so that we can give them the best opportunity to eke out a living for themselves and their families. Many of you have been wondering why the nomenclature innovation in our ministry and you asked the science curriculum officers, you asked the officers within the ministry the number of incidents we've had where we have hosted science fairs displaying the skill, talent and innovation of our young St. Lucia's and unscrupulous unsuspecting persons would come and effectively steal those ideas, monetize and commercialize those ideas with no credit given to the innovator. That is why we are keen to partner with the Ministry of Commerce and other system ministries so that when we have the ACT initiative having exposed St. Lucia's young St. Lucia's kids who had fewer than three months to prepare themselves for that exam and they proved what I had long suspected, we can do it too. We have the talent inland. We have three of those students here with us today. May I invite you please to stand and I invite you to applaud them for their excellent performance on the ACT exam and as the program unfolds you will see. Thank you. When the consultant went to Microd Secondary School and she engaged the young people in the conversation about going to university a young lady remarked, I did not know I could go to university. I am too poor to even think of going to university. That is what educates St. Lucia endeavors to correct. I want also to reference some beautiful young ladies I met at Cave Hill last year when I delivered the Independence Day address to our students at Cave Hill who walked up to me afterwards and said to me Madam Minister, can you please grant us a favor? Can you undertake a college readiness initiative? Because many of my peers who do not know how to get to university, it is not even within their imagination that they too can get there and I remember engaging my colleagues and thinking it had never dawned on me that someone had to excite, had to introduce and had to encourage young people to imagine that they can get to university because there are certain things we take for granted and I met this young lady recently and I thanked her because that said to me that this initiative is critical and so we have embarked upon a college readiness program as well whereby we engage school counselors and I want to thank the school counselors for embracing this initiative. Too very often we think that school counselors only come in when there are problems to deal with but the school counselors also offer career guidance and it is with them that we have partnered so that they can make known to students the opportunities available to them for tertiary education. I can go on and on but I'm guided by the word brief. Thank you so very much. There's a lot of work to be done but I'm encouraged by what we've been able to do over the past 18 months or so. I therefore owe a special debt of gratitude to my team. My team members respond to WhatsApp messages at three in the morning. I could not ask for more. I stand tall because of them. We're able to do this because of them. We're able to initiate the changes that we must initiate in the education system because we recognize where the cracks are and we can do so clinically without attributing blame to anybody but we can agree as a collective that we're too far from the mark and so we will come together, match our talent and our resources and ensure that we deliver to St. Lucia what St. Lucia deserves and that is a first class education fit for purpose in the 21st century. Thank you.