 When the hashtag Educate St. Lucia slogan and campaign were launched in March of 2018, the Ministry of Education envisaged that through the operation, it would be able to create new initiatives that can correct social ills and to harmonize efforts on the island to impact the education sector like never before. Speaking at a recently held briefing ceremony for the second cohort of the First Generation Scholarship Program, Permanent Secretary in the Department of Education, Innovation and Vocational Training Michelle Charles said it was this important action taken by the department which has created and enabled an environment that promotes educational opportunities, awareness and access locally, regionally and internationally to St. Lucia to further their education. This all-encompassing yet unpretentious philosophy captures the essence of our tasks. If you are to reflect on this for a minute, you will realize how daunting this can seem yet this is what we set out to do every day at the Department of Education. Our day-to-day work focuses on early childhood education, special needs education, primary and secondary and tertiary education, add to this lifelong learning, continuous education, skills training, upskilling, retooling. And if you thought this was enough, consider the fact that we need to incorporate elements of equity, equality, inclusivity, access and gender into all of our undertakings. Education Minister Honorable Sean Edward Meanwhile stressed the importance of education to deal with many of the island's issues and argues that despite the government's many other allocations nationally, it is essential to invest heavily in the education of its people. It is okay to pave the roads, it is okay to modernize school infrastructure, it is okay to have a brand new hospital, it is okay for us to put a lot of money into infrastructure development. But it is equally important, if not more important, to ensure that when the national budget is rolled out and finalized that there is a significant amount of that resource being allocated to human resource development. The fresh cohort of the One University Graduate Per Household Initiative adds 50 new scholarships to the program. The 50 recipients will each receive full tuition for a bachelor's degree in varying areas with costs met jointly by the government of St. Lucia and Monroe College. P.S. Charles says there is certainly more to come in the education agenda of government. At the Department of Education, we can boast of you as our success stories. We see you as a fulfillment of our duties and responsibilities to our nation. Remember our simple yet profound mandate, Educate St. Lucia? People generally say that things are accomplished one step at a time or one person at a time. But I am excited that we are achieving this goal that we have set ourselves, 50 first-gen scholars at a time. The hashtag Educate St. Lucia initiative has eight pillars including the First Generation Scholarship Program, the American College Testing, ACT initiative, NAPSAC Drive, Lifelong Learning, Vocational Qualification, Voluntaryism and Apprenticeship, Career Readiness and Innovation. From the Communications Unit of the Department of Education, Innovation and Vocational Training, I am Chris Satney reporting.