From left to right – Executive Director of Crosstown, Chris Terrill; Chief Executive Officer of the XQ Institute; Russlynn Ali; and Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, in discussion at the special screening of XQ Institute’s documentary The First Class at Olympus Theatres, yesterday. (PMO)
Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley is insisting that education transformation was necessary for the country, declaring that “for more than 70 years we have been practising education apartheid”.
She emphasised that point yesterday, during a special screening of XQ Institute’s documentary: The First Class, for educators, students and other specially invited guests at Olympus Theatres. The film follows the founding class of Crosstown High, Memphis, Tennessee, United States of America as one of the XQ schools redefining the future of learning.
Ms. Mottley told her audience that the country could not “continue writing off so many of our children each and every year. And, if it is the last thing that I do, whether in or out of public life, we are going to continue this fight because this defines the Barbados of the present and the future”.
She continued: “And it can’t be done because I, as Prime Minister, want it or the Minister wants it or the Chief wants it…It has to be done because the country needs it…The country needs it because for more than seven years, we’ve been practising a form of educational apartheid [meaning]. We take the best view and we make the best of them and then we leave the rest or the majority outside and that cannot work… If you do not understand how the other side lives, moves and works on 166 square miles, you’re not going to get the best out of this country.”
The Prime Minister contended that there were multiple teaching methodologies that could be utilised, declaring that it was up to the principals working alongside the Ministry of Education to determine the best option for their respective schools, adding that “what we can’t do is to do one or two [methods] and believe that, that is change”.
“This country needs this transformation and the exact design of what we do will come after the consultative process finishes. Everything that we have set out to do, may not be the exact framework that we end up with because what matters is that we carry the majority of the people in the country with us.
“If we are not carrying the majority with us, then there’s not enough people to lift the weight and we have to make light work of this education transformation process,” Ms. Mottley underlined.
She pledged to allocate additional human and financial resources to the Ministry to deal with all aspects of the transformation over the next few years.
Following the screening of the film, there was a panel discussion moderated by Chief Education Officer Dr. Ramona Archer-Bradshaw, with Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of XQ Institute Russlyn Ali, Executive Director of Crosstown High, Chris Terrill and Principal of Queen’s College, Mitchelle Maxwell fielding questions from Dr. Archer-Bradshaw on a range of issues.
There were also screenings for the wider student body and the public.