Basseterre, St. Kitts, February 28, 2018 (SKNIS): Deputy Prime Minister, Honourable Shawn Richards, is in Martinique participating in the 3rd Council of Ministers of Education in the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).
The two-day meeting, which started on Tuesday (February 27), is being held under the theme “Access and Equity.”
President of the Territorial Collective of Martinique, Alfred Marie-Jeanne, noted that one of the objectives of the meeting is to “harness innovative ideas to contribute to the development of education in our Caribbean Continent.”
As such the delegates from around the region are focussing on topics related to strengthening multilingualism through the OECS Language Assistant Project School Exchanges; UNICEF support in the OECS; UNESCO’s new vision for Integrating Technical and Vocational Training in the Education System; the Caribbean Development Bank’s Regional Framework for Action for Mathematics Education, (FAME) and the New Education and Training Policy and Strategy. Partnerships with regional and international partners towards the development agenda in the OECS are also being reviewed as well as the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) post disaster response to education.
Also participating in the meeting are the Ministers of Education from Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, and Montserrat. Other delegates include the Minister of Social Development of the British Virgin Islands, the Executive Counsellor in charge of Education in Martinique and the Director General of the OECS, Dr. Didacus Jules.