 and welcome to our review of the year 2022, the year that was for the Ministry of Education, Sustainable Development, Innovation, Science, Technology and Vocational Training. My name is Chris Santney. I will be joined later by my colleagues Daniel Dubois and Jesse Leos who will help in this 2022 review, a year which saw much progress in climate change and the Eskazoo Agreement, Curriculum Development, ICT in Education, TVET, the start of the CPA exams in St. Lucia and the return of the laptop program. So stay with us as we review 2022. Amid a global pandemic that delayed the reopening of schools for the second term of the academic year, Minister with responsibility for Education, Honourable Sean Edwin and the Parliamentary Secretary-Senator Honourable Pauline Antoine Prosper met with middle and a senior education management of the Ministry to plot the way forward for the education sector for 2022. The quality of citizens we have one, two, three decades down the road will be speaking volumes either positively or negatively about the education that we served our children. Supporting the integration of TVET students across regional and international markets through higher education, the French Gateways to Global Careers pilot collaborative work in project was launched by Unite Caribbean, the French Embassy in St. Lucia and the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College. Unite Caribbean, the French government are now living the dream of us, okay? They have come on board and we have created this great program and never attempted groundbreaking initiative designed to give users French-focused entrepreneurship training. The Ministry of Education decided to reopen schools on Monday, February 7, 2022, using the face-to-face modality of a whole school or alternate day approach after observing a general decline in the numbers of the fifth wave of COVID-19 cases and maintaining continued engagement and dialogue with relevant stakeholders. We continue to ask everyone to be vigilant as we note that our students' student population would be around the 10 to 11 percent of the COVID numbers, regardless of them being in or out of school. School guidance counselors island-wide gathered for a celebratory ecumenical service to usher in activities marking Counselors Week 2022. Under the theme passion, care and concern, school counselors still moving forward. The National Awards of Excellence ceremony took place at the National Cultural Center. Awards were presented for top performers in special education, common entrance, CXC CSEC, CAPE, and the top performers in the various divisions of the St Arthur Lewis Community College during the event honoring students who have excelled in the areas of sports, arts, and academics, as well as educators for their outstanding service in education on the island. It is not enough these days to just prepare somebody for a job in solution. Our education system is about producing world-class citizens, so that if circumstances force your migration, it does not matter where in this world you decide to set up shop, we would have armed you with the skills, the knowledge, and the aptitude to make a contribution and to support yourself, support your family, and support your country. A virtual spelling quiz undertaken by the Cassie's Comprehensive Secondary School ended with two first place winners. Scott Halsey and Adria Zafrin proved themselves formidable, and although only one prize was allocated for the winner, the school sought to provide two equal prizes to the student winners. After being forced to temporarily shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic, a university provided medical education to students from across the world on an offshore campus in the island's southern region was given the opportunity to restart. International American University IAU representatives met with Minister for Education Honorable Sean Edward to discuss restarting the school's discontinued courses. Economically, our institution was supporting the VFOT community a lot. Unfortunately, the pandemic came and the students had to go back and all the travel locks, the airport doors, not supportive of, you know, allowing these students to pass through. The travel bans literally made it very impossible to keep the students in St. Lucia for the last two years. But here, we are today to find a way to make it revive the institution and bring the students back and satisfy, bring to reality the dream that VFOT is a university town. The Education Quality Improvement Project equipped three school building projects was progressing as planned and expected to be finished on time. The Vidbutai Primary School, the Gordon and Walcott Memorial Methodist, and the Laguerre Primary School are all having sections added to them. Construction began at the three school locations in June of 2021 with monies allocated from the Government of St. Lucia and the Caribbean Development Bank to the tune of 24 million East Caribbean dollars. Donation checks were presented by the Chamber of Commerce's partners to the Ministry of Education's Student Welfare Program. The program organizes initiatives, including the National School Lunch Program and the annual book drive. Low-select Caribbean Metals Limited, Jay Bagasse, and the Bank of St. Lucia were just a few of the companies that played a role. The Sir Arthur Lewis Community College honored and designed a memorandum of understanding with Dr. Kato Lorenzen, a pioneer in the field of regenerative engineering with St. Lucia Roots at a ceremony held at the college. This came days before Dr. Lorenzen was honored locally with the National Medal of Honor Gold. It is something that is, I believe, is one of the highlights of my life and my career. As you know, I've been around the world and I've met many presidents, premiers and had a number of awards. This marks, this is an award that is very near to me because it comes from my home in my homeland. A majority of cabinet members spoke in favor of an OECS initiative to provide electronic learning resources to students in the island's primary schools. Prime Minister Honorable Philip J. Pierre reaffirmed his government's dedication to providing electronic devices to every child on the island to support their digital education growth and gave a platform for them to engage in online study any time it becomes required. The philosophy that says that there must be equal opportunity for all individuals, every child, in spite of where they are born or where they live or where their parents come from or the color of their skin should have equal opportunity for education in the country of example. The Ministry of Education used the mascot to increase awareness of the newly implemented Caribbean primary exit assessment or CPEA examinations which had previously been known as the common entrance examinations. 2055 candidates from 69 primary schools from across the island sat the first ever Caribbean primary exit assessment CPEA examinations revealing a national mean of 70.56 percent. Zavi Neil Fontenelle of the day Impolet Louisi primary school topped the exams with a score of 97.2 percent. The top 10 students came from seven different schools and the top five students were all boys. The CPEA was introduced to give students a combined grade of 40 percent of continuous assessment involving an SBA and a 60 percent of an examination. Cooks within the Ministry of Education's school feeding program received training funded by the Food and Agriculture Organization FAO to help enhance the preparation and the presentation of meals the students under the program. What we've noticed is that a lot of our children are not getting a healthy diet is because parents are not educated. Even some of our cooks they're not they don't to show about education in nutrition so therefore we want to make that holistic so we're also having the parents we're having a part where the parents will be educated on how to cook for the children even the teachers will be included in that. St. Lucia with funding from UNESCO is one step closer to fully integrating the queer language into the education system as education officials and stakeholders met to discuss and assess the language education policy and the plan. The project was conceptualized by the language department of Camdo. Ministry of Education was funded by UNESCO under its participation program 2020-2021 call. Specifically the project addresses a very important issue of the status of the career language within the education system. The key objective being the development of an implementation plan which would essentially transform policy into action paper into practice. To kick off National Library Week a ceremony was conducted in the Central Library to the theme connect with your library honoring the life and legacy of the late Hunter G. Fossoir. National Library Week in St. Lucia is a time to honor the institution of libraries and the people who work in them. The Beanfield Comprehensive Secondary School was named the winner of a science snapshot competition put on by the curriculum and materials development unit Camdo. The science snapshot competition also known as the four stem competition is being used by Camdo as an avenue to nurture the interest among students in science technology engineering and mathematics or STEM throughout the education sector. Through a pilot project called the Post Primary Alternative Pathway the Ministry of Education and the St Lucia Social Development Fund SSDF worked together to reach out to young men who may have fallen through the cracks in the education system and provide them with specialized training and care. So we have investigated the level of of intelligence, speech and language, academic performances such as reading abilities, ability to do mathematics. There is a comprehensive report available on each of these students. We know exactly the levels of functioning that they have and that gives us information to suggest what is possible for them going forward. Their Royal Highnesses Prince Edward Earl and the Countess of Wessex spent the last day of their royal visit to St Lucia touring local schools. The platinum jubilee Caribbean trip concluded with a week-long stay on the island. Several students of the St Lucia Sports Academy were afforded opportunities to attain higher education in Jamaica following the completion of their studies at the local academy. This for us is testimony of what the St Lucia Sports Academy is really about. At inception the thinking was about creating another pathway for our students especially those who are sports oriented to marry their sporting ability together with the academic side of things and this was about creating this pathway that would allow our students access to higher education, tertiary education and we can see this is exactly what's happening. A retreat for education ministers, technical advisors, planners and staff within the subregion met in St Lucia to discuss several issues within the sector including higher education. The forum was hosted by the Education Development Management Unit EDMU of the OECS Commission. Significant advancement in ICT in education was realized with the help of the Taiwanese government. My colleague Daniel Dubois picks it up from here beginning with a tribute to the Taiwanese. Thanks Chris. We're presently at the Taiwanese Embassy in Rondie Bay paying tribute to the outstanding support from the government and people of Taiwan to St Lucia's education sector and overall development on the island. The Ministry of Education showered hearty praise on the government and people of Taiwan for the outpouring of technological support in advancing instruction in schools on the island. The Taiwanese government gave major support to facilitate remote learning during the Covid pandemic through the provision of many electronic devices. This comes as phase one of Taiwan's ICT in education project came to an end. Over the past three years the Taiwanese Embassy ICT for educational development project has provided over 25 schools on the island with technological equipment and smart classrooms while at the same time building teacher capacity in the use of new technologies to enhance instruction. A total of 32 65-inch interactive educational screens were handed over to 11 secondary schools and 10 primary schools as part of the project. The multimedia space is designed to support several areas including interactive learning and recording of music and theatrical performances. It can also be used for videoconferencing, virtual tours and interactive sports theory and strategy. They can facilitate instruction by live stream the lessons and real-time interaction with students. Provide students access to online content or library materials. Top-level management and officials from the Ministry of Education joined principals for their 38th annual education conference to collectively reflect and celebrate the strides of school administrative leaders after a two-year hiatus. Former Prime Minister of St. Lucia Honorable Dr. Kennedy Anthony delivered the keynote address. The exodus from the teaching profession is deeply worrisome. Far too many teachers have exited the teaching service before the prescribed age of retirement. Some prefer retirement to the daily harassment in the classroom, the constant challenge to authority and discipline, the difficulty of maintaining interest and passion in education. Early childhood educators from St. Lucia, Dominica, Gwyneda and St. Vincent come together as part of the OECS PUL project in a leaders forum to chart the way forward for the sector, focusing on access and improving quality. Basically we are here to discuss what are the issues and the challenges that are facing the early childhood unit. We are also looking at how the PUL and the funding from the PUL can provide support to the early childhood sector. 75 teachers from around the island celebrated the completion of professional development training in special education through the collaborative efforts of the Department of Education through EQUIP, Sir Arthur Lewis Community College and the Mount St. Vincent University out of Canada. This project will now open away for continued access to training for special education needs as the program will now be offered at the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College. You transferred that skill. The National Enrichment Learning Unit NELU has embarked on a mission to align all their course offerings with that of CVQ standards, granting students more scope and portability with their certification upon completion. We are starting to elevate our standards. Before we offered a certification that is non-possible or not recognized internationally and we know that the efforts of the education system now is the CVET and CVQs and other international forms of certification. Therefore we are starting to align our standards with that of the CVQs and other international forms of certification. Teachers from around the island engaged in the teacher immersion program under the Human Resilience Capacity Building project to strengthen and expand CVET offerings and capacity in schools to secure alternative pathways for young students in the job market. The Curriculum and Materials Development Unit CAMDU held a prize-giving ceremony for the National School of Science and Technology Fair as well as the IT Digital Literacy Video Competition. The Sufra Comprehensive Secondary School captured top spots at the annual National School of Science and Technology Fair and the first IT Digital Literacy Video Competition at a prize-giving ceremony held recently at the Yui Open Campus. The Umbrella Taiwan ICT in Education project conducted a three-day workshop for educational administrators focusing on learning analytics and how it can be harnessed to improve educational products and processes. It's obvious that ICT in education is not only about smart classrooms and devices but also about additional tools that would allow you to function more effectively as administrators in your position. As leaders within our education system, it is important that you lead by example and attune your minds to embracing change. The Post Primary Alternative Pathway Program PAP continues to expand as the St. Lucia Social Development Fund, SSDF, financially supports 13 more students to join the schooling intervention program. Our students learn differently. Our students have different needs and the time has come for us to address the needs of every student. We believe that no child should be left behind and we continue to work assiduously towards ensuring that our education system is relevant, inclusive and equitable to all learners. The Post Secondary Alternative Pathway Program was conceived out of this vision. Youth in business, sports and climate change who among items of discussion when Commonwealth Secretary-General, the Right Honourable Patricia Scotland QC, met with the Education and Sports Minister. We spoke about the whole climate change situation as it confronts small island states of seeds as we call them. We spoke about the long lasting relationship that St. Lucia has been able to forge with the Commonwealth along the lines of education. I think we are on the right track. I think we can continue to show our appreciation to Commonwealth as it pertains to our youth policy. We are very, very close to having an actual youth policy passed in St. Lucia thanks to the work that was commenced years ago. Four young St. Lucians are heading off to Hungary to pursue undergraduate studies as part of a three-year cooperation memorandum signed between the Ministry of Education in St. Lucia and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hungary. The Government of the Republic of China, Taiwan continues to express its commitment to providing Lucians with more opportunities to further their studies. Seven students formerly from the Viewport Comprehensive and Shoselle Secondary Schools are recipients of new laptops provided by the Ministry of Education to assist their studies in Jamaica. The De Nervia Combined School celebrated its 50th anniversary and paid tribute to the many teachers who have served through the years. But we took the time out as De Nervia Combined along with a team of teachers, past students and we went to her house on Sunday. We spent some time with her and we honoured her and she was indeed very, very pleased. This is where it starts. Yes, I was able to get a secondary education. I went to university, I have a master's degree. All of these things are important but we should never, ever forget where the foundation started. Ministry officials were delighted by the outpouring of support for its activity dubbed, present, proudly representing each school exalting our nation's teachers, paying homage to the nation's teachers and the incredible role they play in shaping lives and careers on the island. Put on your school clothes. Mete Hadley Colo was the clarion call that drew many throughout the island to turn out in their big numbers, wearing their uniforms from their alma mater. All part of the celebrations for this year's Teachers Week. I don't know that we have the words individually or even as a collective, as a ministry, to thank adequately express our gratitude to the hundreds of teachers who continue to toil daily just to ensure that the shape citizens who will take their rightful place in society tomorrow. A Paul Wald Summit was held at the St. Lucia Sports Academy and seen as a significant strategy to further develop the sport on the island. When it comes to this event, now we're actually building for two, three, four, five years down the line. We'll get through the next year or two just fine but this is really setting the foundation for St. Lucia for the years to come. The various UN agencies in St. Lucia joined forces at the Sufra Comprehensive Secondary School to enlighten them on the work of the UN on the island and to encourage students to consider careers within the UN. Because the reform came about by the countries going to the United Nations and saying, hey, if we are to achieve those ambitious sustainable development goals, you cannot stay in New York and expect us to do it in such a timely manner. We need you to be closer to us, to support us and to understand what our needs are, what our priorities are so that you are better able to respond to those priorities. The Central Library continued its outreach and engagement program with yet another activity, this time celebrating Creole Heritage Month in authentic style with staff and students. Quilte said de visor, culture heals, was the theme used to expose young students to the Creole language and the culture. The generation of employment through private sector development program GEP said, agency responsible for the implementation of St. Lucia's 2019-2025 national TVET policy and strategy hosted a week-long national TVET symposium. We are hoping that the workforce development center will kickstart the ministry of education's efforts in ensuring that technical vocational education and training at last gets its rightful place in economic development and the whole workforce development of St. Lucia. It is for this reason that the TVET council sat and conceptualized a workforce development center because we felt that this was one of the pieces which were missing from our TVET landscape. One school in the city center is taking safety and disaster risk reduction to another level with the installment of the junior safety monitors program. The Gordon and Wolcott Memorial Methodist School relaunched its junior safety monitors program which was discontinued in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our junior safety monitors program develops student leaders. So have a look at them, our future leaders. So they are well on their way to developing the skills of future leaders. Let us applaud them. Educational districts island-wide engage in a series of activities to highlight and promote the importance of mathematics for mathematics months under the theme mathematics unites. Teachers, I urge you to continue to plan and execute impactful mathematics lessons. You are not only teaching effective application of the four operations but you are providing students with opportunities to develop problem solving and critical thinking skills. The St. Lucia National Commission for UNESCO announced the winners for its 2022 Quayol poem competition at a prize-giving ceremony. The winning piece was penned by Alsace Ishmael with a poem entitled And a major step towards the teaching of Mandarin in schools was made with the launch of the Mandarin pilot project. The launch of the Mandarin pilot program also saw the donation of Mandarin text to the Ministry of Education by the Taiwanese government who is funding the project. From Rondi Bay in front of the Taiwanese Embassy, I am Daniel Dubois. Back to you Chris. Thanks Daniel, it has also been an amazing year as far as happenings within the Department of Sustainable Development are concerned. Here with more is my colleague, Jesse Leon. Thanks Chris, we're at Pigeon Point, one of the more picturesque locations in the islands north just a stone's throw from the Pigeon Island National Landmark. 2022 was a game-changing year in crafting a more sustainable, eco-friendly future for St. Lucia from the Department of Sustainable Development and its partner agencies. The endorsement of the Marine Litter Management Action Plan or MLMAP was finalized by the Cabinet of Ministers this year. Supported by the United Nations Environment Program, UNEP, the Government of St. Lucia prepared a national source inventory in order to strategically tackle plastic pollution and marine litter. This inventory encompasses statistics, databases on plastic and other product life cycles and flows, waste sources and streams into coastal and marine environments. By bringing different data sources together, the country's selected approach will provide the basis for strategic action through the MLMAP. Sustainable Development Minister Sean Edward addressed parliament in September on the significance of this intervention. The goal of the MLMAP or the Marine Litter Management Action Plan, this Marine Litter Management Action Plan is to reduce the impact of marine litter on marine ecosystems and human health by promoting the effective control of all sources of marine pollution. The MLMAP will help build capacity and raise funding, map progress and identify existing frameworks and gaps, track compliance with guidelines and be the foundation for interagency coordination. This national effort is consistent with the landmark agreement at this year's United Nations Environment Assembly to end plastic pollution by 2024. The United Nations, UN, recognized St. Lucia in its collaborative role with Vanuatu and Comoros for their small island-developing state's restoration drive. It was one of 10 winning initiatives from around the world, dubbed World Restoration Flagships for their role in restoring the natural world. The announcement was made at the UN Biodiversity Conference, COP15, in Montreal. St. Lucia's delegation lead in Canada was our Permanent Secretary Anita Montout. With support from UN Dessert, FAO and UNEP, we look forward to the transformation of the challenges we face in our conservation and restoration efforts to opportunities that will cement partnerships that will enhance our efforts and bring needed capacity building, financial and technical support to our countries. The small island-developing state's restoration drive is focused on scaling up ridge-to-reef restoration of unique ecosystems and tapping blue economic growth to help island communities rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic. A St. Lucia delegation participated in weeks of feverish negotiations at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP27, held in Egypt, which resulted in an agreement to create a dedicated climate loss and damage fund, particularly for nations most vulnerable to the climate crisis like St. Lucia. Sustainable Development and Environment Officer Jermaine Missall, who is part of the delegation, explains how St. Lucia may benefit from such a facility. It's a huge achievement for small island-developing states who have been very instrumental in this process and who have started this fight some 30 years ago, in 1991, when the Alliance of Small Island States, what we call EOSIS, they first proposed an insurance mechanism to address the level rise, you know, looking at the whole issue of loss and damage. And so the loss and damage fund is an opportunity for small island-developing states like St. Lucia to have ready access to that finance that is needed and often difficult to come by. The department represented St. Lucia at the Jeff 558 Terminal Workshop and the inauguration of the Jeff Islands Project in Trinidad. The participants saw the closure of one project and the launch of another, both of which are strategically designed to enable us to harness the tools to soundly manage chemicals and waste towards the protection of human health and environment. Further restrictions took effect on the manufacturing, sale, distribution and use of disposable styrofoam egg cartons, plastic forks, spoons, knives, straws, hinged takeaway containers and stirrers as part of a years-long legislated phase-out of single-use plastics in St. Lucia. Sustainable Development and Environment Officer Genelle Volney was featured in a PSA reminding the public of this prohibition. Single-use plastic that are prohibited in St. Lucia bear the following labels. Polystyrene, PS, or the plastic number number six, expanded polystyrene, also the plastic number six where we also know it as styrofoam, polyethylene terephthalate, PET or PETE, plastic number one and high-density polyethylene HDPE, plastic type number two, food service containers. St. Lucia's accession to the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing took effect in July. The Nagoya Protocol is a multilateral treaty that implements the access and benefit sharing obligations of the Convention on Biological Diversity. This is accomplished by setting up a legal framework to ensure that owners or guardians of genetic resources and traditional knowledge associated with these genetic resources receive a fair share of any benefits that arise from the research conducted. As party to the Convention, St. Lucia has participated in the development of the legal framework referred to as the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. We still have many contentious issues still to be resolved and well, we're just starting off but it's going to be a long, a very long negotiation period. We have some very contentious issues including resource mobilization, the Global Biodiversity Framework itself which is one of the main outcomes we're hoping to get from this scope. This framework would guide the way that biodiversity is managed and governed for the next in 2020. St. Lucia hosted the Second Nationally Determined Contribution NDC Investment Forum, a three-day regional event jointly undertaken by the Government of St. Lucia and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, OECS. The forum brought together OECS governmental leaders, policy makers, regional stakeholders, investors and international partners to discuss the adoption of alternative energy sources, explore the decarbonization of the eastern Caribbean, harnessing the power of clean energy, and charting a path for environmental sustainability while building resilience to the impacts of climate change in several sectors. Minister Edward reaffirms St. Lucia's commitment to addressing challenges and capitalizing on opportunities that surround Sustainable Development Goal 14 in his address at the UN Oceans Conference in Portugal. The Government of St. Lucia has long recognized this heavy dependence on the islands, coastal and marine resources and the related pressures are exerted on the environment and we have actively engaged in the development of frameworks and mechanisms to facilitate the effective conservation, management and sustainable use of our marine resources. The perception of science in secondary schools report was released in May as part of a UNESCO funded project to strengthen the institutional framework for the promotion of science and technology in St. Lucia. Our science and technology officer, Joanne Norville, provided a summary. In 2020, a survey was conducted among secondary school students in St. Lucia to gauge their perception towards science and technology and also to compare this data to a similar survey conducted in 2013. So based on this survey data, an analysis report was prepared and presented to various stakeholders highlighting the attitudes of students towards science and technology in the educational curriculum of St. Lucia. This was so that the attitudes and perceptions of the students can be considered when planning the way forward at various levels. St. Lucia participated in the first conference of the parties to the Eskazoo Agreement or COP 1. The Eskazoo Agreement is the first environmental treaty of Latin America and the Caribbean. It concerns the rights of access to information about the environment, public participation in environmental decision making, environmental justice and a healthy and sustainable environment for current and future generations. National focal point Kate Wilson spoke on the outcomes of the first COP. The two most important decisions which were taken by this first conference of parties was the decision on human rights defendants. There was a lot, a lot of input and back and forth in terms of the role of the public and civil society as well as indigenous persons and local communities in this whole Eskazoo implementation process. And one of the things I spoke with the alternate representative for the public, Mrs. Curator-Puck's child, she was very happy to see come out of this first COP was the fact that indigenous persons and local communities were given the opportunity to be part of this first conference. An inaugural Women in Science Forum was held in March as part of the project to strengthen the institutional framework for the promotion of science and technology in St. Lucia. The three-day forum included an award component celebrating outstanding St. Lucia women in science across five categories, special award for dedication to the promotion of science in St. Lucia, going to Anita James, post-pandemic resilience award going to Dr. Sharon Belmont George, STEM advocate, St. Lucia astrophysicist, Sharon Polius, skin glow award went to Shakira Roberts of Lotus Cosmetics and Food as Medicine Award went to Sam Alex of Healing Foods. Other activities included a workshop to build capacity for a sustainable sisterhood, promoting greater networking among St. Lucia female science practitioners and a panel discussion on the topic leveraging St. Lucia's unique female excellence in STEM education. Introductory talks between Minister Edward and officials of the Global Environment Facility Small Grants Program UNDP in St. Lucia took place in February. I must say that I'm a lot more enlightened in terms of what Jeff would have done over the years and I'm even more excited given some of the plans they have and some of the projects they look into undertake in the various communities. And finally, the private sector adaptation study on St. Lucia was disseminated. This report examined the climate change adaptation efforts to date of private firms in St. Lucia as well as the impact of the government's initiatives aimed at encouraging private sector adaptation. It drew lessons from two community investment funds supported adaptation financing initiatives, the Climate Adaptation Financing Facility or CAF implemented by the St. Lucia Development Bank and the Sustainable Agribusiness for Labry and Environments or SAB or SMART Climb implemented by the Labry Cooperative Credit Union. The study acknowledged St. Lucia's leadership in establishing a policy framework for an ambitious climate adaptation agenda and the government's concerted efforts to involve private sector actors with planning activities. Now the most critical role identified for the private sector is not participating in policymaking but undertaking interventions to ensure its own resilience including pursuing business opportunities created by climate change and other recommendations were for government's priorities to shift towards the facilitation of private sector investments in climate adaptation and resilience solutions. And that's a round up of major developments from the Department of Sustainable Development in 2022. From a beautiful pigeon point, I'm Jesse Leance. Back to you, Chris. Thanks, Jesse. And in some more education review, St. Lucia's teachers involved in a TVET Teacher Immersion Program of the Ministry of Education's Human Capital Resilience Project are now more prepared for plans to offer more TVET subjects at the secondary level, following a graduation exercise at the Mount of Prayer in Kobara. The 81 teachers who graduated from the program engaged in a series of workshops geared towards expanding capacity in existing and new subjects to strengthen and expand TVET offerings and the capacity in schools to secure alternative pathways for young students in the job market. Transformation, however, is not an easy process. And even if we possess all of the financial resources to make the necessary changes, which we don't, the human resource is even more critical to the success of the proposed change. We have to create an environment and an atmosphere in St. Lucia that would give rise to entrepreneurship. We have to begin to equip our students in the schools at the secondary level that would impact skills that would make them employable, yes, in the private sector, but also give them an education and a training that can create them to believe in creating their own businesses. As the new school year got underway, government's laptop program was revived with over 2,000 Chromebooks and over 2,000 tablets given out to students in primary and secondary schools. The program is a step closer to fulfilling the objective of one laptop per child. That's according to Minister of Responsibility for Education, Sean Edward, who participated in an orientation exercise for incoming first farmers. The Dame Poulet-Louise Primary School, following critical assessment in the aftermath of unexpected floods, was estimated to have received extensive damage to the ground floor where flood waters rose to a height of three feet, submerging all furniture, books and other instructional materials and office equipment with a thick layer of silt. After extensive cleaning, students returned to the classroom one week later. Students of the Grozile Primary School can now pick from a wider selection of books from their library as the hands across the C Organization and the CIBC St. Lucia collaborated and officially handed over educational resources to the school. Education technical teams from Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines came together for a week-long workshop to develop educational sector plans to guide the next five years of their educational policy in their respective countries. So we look at what is Grenada doing, what is St. Lucia doing, what is St. Vincent doing, what are the similarities and how can we learn from each other. So some islands, after we leave here, will go back and put in what is unique to their territory. But during the session here, we are going to learn from each other and try to improve our systems and learn from what each other island is doing. And with this, Dr. Claudia Louie-Insert, we bring our review of 2022 to an end. We are more than grateful that you could have joined us and look forward to equally progressive and satisfying accomplishments within the Ministry of Education, Sustainable Development, Innovation, Science, Technology and Vocational Training for 2023. On behalf of the entire production team, I am Communications Officer Chris Satney saying goodbye and thanking you for watching.