 Amidst the robust policy undertaking to ensure one university graduate per household in St. Lucia, the Department of Human Resource Development of the Ministry of Education hosted a college fair which brought together seven universities and colleges from the Midwest to North East America and Canada, which currently offers scholarships to prospective St. Lucia students for studies at the bachelor's, master's, and doctoral levels. Associate Vice President of Global Studies at Western Illinois University Dr. Randy Gleane says the scholarships on offer not only afford the recipients financial assistance but also ample opportunities for networking and building alliances, all of which will benefit the prospective students once graduated and associate economic standing of the island in the future. It's the brain power and of course if you look at St. Lucia's population is actually equal to Grenada and Dominica combined, for example, and the education system in St. Lucia is actually top notch, I mean rivals, Barbados and some of the world powers in terms of the high degrees of literacy in terms of the students' willingness to do STEM programs, challenging programs, the success ratio, I mean, you can't ignore an island that's had two Nobel Prize winners, there is clearly excellence that's part of the culture in St. Lucia, so I think universities always are gravitating towards excellence and what better place to do it. Minister for Education and Vocational Training Honorable Sean Edward says, government's tactical actions in sourcing scholarship opportunities for students are deemed as an effective tool in promoting and enhancing St. Lucia's soft power by investing in future leaders, providing equity to higher education, and increasing research and innovation excellence. This is not a one-off, this is something we're looking to repeat over time and as I would have indicated we are extremely committed as an administration to give higher educational opportunities to young people in this country so that they can look towards education as an avenue for which they can realize their professional dreams. There was a time in our country when university education was affordable and accessible only to people who came from a particular socio-economic background. We are trying to bridge that gap to give opportunities to all St. Lucia's who demonstrate that they have the aptitude and the capacity to pursue higher education irrespective of their own personal circumstances and the socio-economic backgrounds from which they emanate. The college fair was a supplementary endeavor to the ongoing scholarship outreach drive by the department, which sees human resource officers meet one-on-one with residents at the community level island-wide. I'm very grateful to be here first of all. I think it's a very great initiative to have, bringing all these students together. We have from secondary, tertiary, I've even seen some primary school students here, so we're all very grateful to be here and be able to obtain this opportunity to explore these different universities and really open up their eyes to their potential career paths, their potential futures, it's really been helpful. The Department of Education urges school leavers and anyone desirous of attaining higher education to take advantage of the many scholarships on offer in various fields. From the communication unit of the Department of Education, Innovation and Vocational Training, I am Amanda Fee-Clock reporting.