Passport out of poverty is education, says Dr Roosevelt Skerrit

“The passport out of poverty is education or acquisition of the skill,” said Prime Minister of Commonwealth of Dominica, Dr Roosevelt Skerrit during his speech at Town Hall meeting in Mahaut constituency.

According to Prime Minister many young Dominicans were denied for the opportunity to attend secondary school, college or to move to university due to economic circumstances of their parents. “I Believe that your economic circumstance should never be determined for any human being to access education,” Skerrit added that the government has brought revolution into the education sector with the creation of universal access to secondary education, which means every single child who gets to grade 6 in Dominica has a space in secondary school.

He asserted that when Dominica Labour Party took over the government, they built State College of Dominica. Which brought 100% access to the students who want to study in college, in contrast to the year 2000 when only 7% of students had access to the college.

“When I went to university not long ago, I never got a single dollar from the government. But the opportunities today people are having of education, it is not a right, it is because of the understanding of the government towards people and recognition of the government to provide opportunities for every single child of this country,” said Prime Minister.

In the current budget of 2019-2020, the government of Dominica has introduced the structuration of the schooling system in the country. the Prime Minister announced that they have articulated a new structure for secondary schools in the wake of a new generation. “We still have the same structure of 1950 where there is one principal and then teachers. But, it is 2019 so new structural organisation is required”.

The organization structure for secondary schools will include the following categories of

Teachers:

·      Principal 1

·      Deputy principal 2

·      Assistant Deputy Principal 2

·      Heads of Department

·      Senior Graduate Teacher

·      Graduate Teacher

·      Senior Qualified Teacher

·      Qualified Teacher

“Likewise, in health we are putting new structure in health, our nurses, they go out and train themselves, many of them have first degrees or master degrees in health but many of them are registered nurses because there are so many positions of ward sisters we are creating whole new structure so that they get promoted according to their ability and new remuneration to justify their position,” he added.

Applauding candidate of constituency Mahaut, Rayburn Blackmoore, Prime Minister said “I lived in Mahaut constituency for a very long time and I am always very happy to be in Mahaut constituency. I don’t give marks free, as we learned in school we need to earn the marks, same goes with me, but your Parl Rep earned respect and marks by his work.”