Honorary ‘Georgian’

“I want to belong to an existing productive high school,” he said of why he decided to become a Georgian although he did not attend the school located on Tenth Street and Sixth Avenue.

Foster attended Osmond High School, or Murray School, a once privately-run school which was located on Tenth Avenue, Barataria.

One to which he owes his success. It is Foster’s intent to pay tribute to these types of schools.

Schools often forgotten but which were responsible for moulding a lot of TT’s professionals today.

In an interview with Newsday he said, “It is historical in a sense because I was born in 1946. That college was built in 1953 (St George’s College). As a youngster.

I saw that college built.

“When I took College Exhibition in 1959, the People’s National Movement Government (PNM) platform was free education.

But free was subjective, it was not free for everyone. They increased the number of scholarships for poor folks like myself.” Foster said in the year he sat the exam the number of scholarships awarded was increased to 250. However, when the results were released Foster missed the scholarship mark by two. He was number 252 in the list of people who sat the exam.

He remembered at the time, a student could have paid and attended St George’s but his parents did not have the finances. “It was painful for me seeing my peers go to college and I was not going to college,” he said.

He was then sent to Barataria EC where he sat the School Leaving Exam and, “I did well there too.” His grandmother then returned to Trinidad and enrolled him in Osmond High School.

“Osmond High School was one of many privately-owned secondary schools, designed to fill the gap that was left by the exhibition examination. Arthur Murray had several schools, about seven started in Port-of- Spain.” Foster noted that he did well there and was skipped from forms two to four. “I took the exam with my peers and did well in the GCE exam. I only got four subjects and by some accident I got a nine in English. But got distinctions in French and Spanish.” He re-sat the English exam in 1965 and got a distinction. “In retrospect I have no regrets about not going to St George’s because I think I am a better person.” However, with the closure of Osmond High School and wanting to give back, Foster wrote St George’s principal James Sammy earlier this year seeking to become an honorary Georgian.

Sammy said in a phone interview that the request was unusual but growing up close to that era he also understood. The two first met when Foster came to TT in June