Presentation gets SMART classroom

The project was an initiative by Mohan Mahabirsingh, whose mission it is to modernise and upgrade the classrooms since they are in dire need of repairs and upgrades.

The school hired designer Kemal Manickchand for the model project. As was his intention, Manickchand re-designed the classroom to be a SMART classroom, to help the students compete with the today’s technological advancements.

His concept was to merge the early sophistication of top colleges such as Cambridge and Oxford Universities and modernise with the technological advancements while still maintaining a feeling of historical and traditional value.

To achieve this intermingling of eras, the walls were painted with varying shades of blue, the ceilings were capped off to create clean linear look to the room and hide the infrastructure that was previously exposed.

Oak wood flooring with interlocking tongue and groove were then installed for a smooth clean finish to give that traditional feeling to the room.

Three boards were installed for use by the teachers and students alike. Two of them were white boards and the other, a cork board. Manickchand reasoned, the white boards eliminate the need for dusty chalk materials while the traditional cork board still works for pinning any printed materials.

At the rear of the classroom, wooden cupboards were built into the walls for storage of students’ personal items and new and quieter, sleeklined A/C units were installed. The classroom is also deemed safer, with new windows replacing the glass louvres, and blinds were installed to create a “focus room”.

New teak and glass doors were also installed, allowing for teachers to monitor the classrooms from the outside.

The model classroom serves as a representation of what the school hopes to accomplish to all other classrooms to improve the learning of all students, a task that requires funding from ongoing donations.

At the formal launch on July 4, apart from Carmona, former prime minister Basdeo Panday; and also David Manning, representing his late father the late prime minister Patrick Manning; and Anthony Amos Lucky, United Nations International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, all alumni, were also in attendance and got a first-hand feel of the new model classroom.