Tooling students for pan in 21st century

THE EDITOR: I think it is about time that the local steelband movement under the leadership of Pantrinbago stop the petty squabbling! Support the PSCC in this year’s School’s Steelband Festival! There are too many serious issues that are before us as a nation for the enacted body to be refusing the assistance of a group such as the Pan In Schools Coordinating Council (PSCC). The group was formed out of a real situation that existed by 1999, when the parent body expressed its inability to really handle all the needs of the local pan practitioners, not in the least, those involved in the schools.

The schools had become a source of players for many of the bigger bands producing many bright stars and Pantrinbago was failing to adequately organise the biennial schools steelband festival. The teachers had been attempting to organise the steelband efforts in the schools for quite a number of years, but it was only solidified when Mr Rouston Job the 3rd Vice President of TTUTA called together a group of concerned teachers that the Pan In Schools Coordinating Council came into being in 1999 with a clear focus. It was to look after the interests of the students in the schools. This involved ensuring that the steelpan which had been declared the national instrument was made available in the nation’s schools. The nation as a whole needed to maintain a higher level of world prominence and this could only be through the production of excellent instruments and musically literate pannists on par with any world class musician.

As a founding member of the PSCC and one of the persons in charge of organising the festivals of 1999 and 2001, I know that we have been doing a good job at involving the music departments in the schools, to exploring music that would stretch them to learn about different genres. Since 1999 the ideas for the themes have always been sanctioned by meetings of the schools themselves. Nothing is imposed and there is an atmosphere of encouragement and camaraderie that can only auger well for the local steelband movement. The PSCC spent its initial years working with the curriculum officers of the Ministry of Education, the music teachers and pan tutors in the schools to formulate realistic plans for the introduction of the instrument in the schools in a sustainable manner. The plans are in the hands of the Ministry although we are not in a position to ensure that they are executed as we had designed. We however continue to look after the interests of the students in the schools, and will continue to provide a service to them in the interest of tooling them for the twenty-first century steelpan industry.

Earlier this year the PSCC held a hands on workshop in the “Science of Pan Tuning” and the feedback from the three hundred participants was overwhelming in support of the introduction of pan making at the school level. The PSCC, as instructed by Minister Manning, has also begun to plan the preparation of a structure for integration and application of a holistic pan curriculum. It is my contention that PSCC is in the best position to deal with the educational issues that evolve around the steelband at this time. Pantrinbago should welcome the initiatives of the body who are in no way a threat to the parent body. The PSCC recognises that Pantrinbago is the parent and that the PSCC is under its umbrella. It is time for the parent to stop pushing the fledgling child into the rain. We must unite for the good of the children and for the future forward movement of pan in Trinidad and Tobago.

PATRICIA ADAMS
2nd Vice President, PSCC