The bright future of education in the Cayman Islands will begin to take shape at 9am tomorrow.
That’s when Education Conference 2005, Defining Challenges Finding Solutions Together, gets under way.
At the two day conference educators and those in the Ministry of Education will review packets of information given to them, listen to debate on the issues and come up with solutions.
Plans are to cull all of that information and come up with a document titled National Consensus on Education.
That piece of work will be turned over to the Legislative Assembly when it reconvenes in October.
Minister of Education Mr. Alden McLaughlin said that if all goes as planned, the new regulations that come out of this workshop will be implemented in September 2006.
Much work has gone on behind the scenes in efforts to make this conference a success.
Tuesday night Mr. McLaughlin had dinner with about a dozen representatives from the various media houses in the Cayman Islands.
There we, members of the media, were able to tell him first hand the issues and concerns we hear on a daily basis from our listening, viewing and reading public.
A main topic of discussion, of course, came down to the issue of money.
The education system is not a money making adventure for the Government; that’s a given.
But creative thinking must kick into gear to find ways for the education system to operate efficiently for the betterment of all.
Suggestions were made Tuesday night to bring the private sector in.
As one participant put it, businesses are happy to adopt a highway, why not a school.
We agree.
And it can go further than that.
Parents and guardians are more than happy to invest large amounts of money in vehicles and homes to make sure they last, in some instances, a life time.
The education of their children should be given the same consideration.
We’re not proposing the kind of tuition fees paid to private education institutions, but a modest sum that everyone across the board can afford to help ensure the proper education of their children.
We’ve said it before and it’s worth repeating: we must invest in the education of our children now if this country is to survive.
Good luck to the leaders of education in the country as they come up with promising solutions.
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