Hon de Castro calls for more UNESCO support to advance education in VI
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Hon de Castro who is currently attending the conference that will run until November 22, 2023, at the organization’s headquarters in Paris, France, highlighted VI’s 80th anniversary of secondary education and added that the milestone not only reflects progress but underscores the territory's unwavering commitment to advancing education.
The Minister said that as education stands at the intersection of tradition and transformation, “we are resolute in our mandate to Move Virgin Islands Education: Full S.T.E.A.M. Ahead by ensuring that our students have access to the skills critical for innovation in the present and future while embracing their cultural heritage.”
She added that S.T.E.A.M. as an embodiment of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics, dovetails well with UNESCO's Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education, and Goal 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure.
“These goals underscore the significance of inclusive and equitable education and the fostering of innovation and infrastructure essential for sustainable development.”
Further, Hon de Castro said that as a Small Island Developing State (SIDS) the support provided by UNESCO has been invaluable as the VI has felt the impact of climate change and the global pandemic which has further underscored the importance of distance education and the use of ICT in education.
Leveraging UNESCO's expertise in VI
“We are convinced of the necessity of embracing these modalities to ensure resilience in our educational system,' she said while adding that UNESCO can play a pivotal role in assisting the VI in the realm of S.T.E.A.M. through collaborative efforts directed towards capacity-building programs for educators, provision of the necessary tools and training to implement S.T.E.A.M. methodologies in classrooms.
“Through targeted and ongoing professional development initiatives, we aspire to cultivate a cadre of educators who are not only well-versed in their respective fields but also equipped with the skills to foster creativity, critical thinking, and a love for learning in their students,” she added.
Meanwhile, the Minister also spoke about the Let’s Teach VI program and said the territory will look to UNESCO for support in further developing and refining the initiative by leveraging the organization's global experience in teacher training for assistance with curriculum development and creating contextually relevant and culturally sensitive materials that enhance learning.
She said the VI is also seeking UNESCO's guidance and support through technical assistance in policy formulation, program design, and project implementation surrounding S.T.E.A.M’s robotics, coding, engineering, and digital literacy focus areas.
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16 Responses to “Hon de Castro calls for more UNESCO support to advance education in VI”
We must not ask the people who program us into oblivion to program us out of it, education have one honorable purpose but to train us to be responsible handler of power or neocolinial agender , or else everything else a nonsense so don't ask to speed up colonisation, education need to decolonize, that educational curriculum is to teach us to be respectful of foreign institutional control to perpetuate UK into BVI future, the people will always be in a subservient slavish role like you a young so call educated minister of education emulating the current status of Caribbean leaders as infantilism, wake up from the decastro.
The hand is always out!