A United States Agency International Development (USAID) official recently announced that the agency is seeking to undertake a basic education and literacy campaign within the Caribbean region.
USAID’s Acting Representative, Steven Hendrix, said that the program has been developed based on a request by Prime Minister of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit, who visited their Barbados office about a month ago.
He explained that Prime Minister Skerrit’s area of “keen” interest was basic literacy and education as he expressed deep concern about adolescents who are unable to read proficiently.
“His concern was that kids when the reach adolescence; when they become teenagers, that our sons and daughters be able to read and write at a proficient level. We don’t want to pass on children who do not have the proper skills to higher levels in the schools and create problems in the schools, so I think quite correctly he identified an issue which we ourselves acknowledge”.
In response to Prime Minister Skerrit’s request, Mansfield Blackwood, the Senior Technical Specialist for Economic Growth, will be leading a team in organizing this campaign.
According to Hendrix, because Prime Minister Skerrit was a beneficiary of a USAID scholarship and is aware of the pertinence of USAID funded programs, they took on his suggestion.
“He knows the benefit of USAID programs and so when he says, look we have a problem we need more programming in basic education and basic literacy, we’re gonna listen to him”.
He further stated; “we listen to all of the Caribbean leaders, we listen to the general secretary of the OECS Secretariat….and we do support their leadership and their initiative to do what’s best in their countries”.
This basic literacy and basic education campaign is expected to commence before the end of the year.
Dominica Vibes News
