‘Reading must be fun’

Stating that corporal punishment should not be used in an instructional way to ensure that children learn to read, assistant programme coordinator of the Centre of Excellence of Teacher Training (CETT) programme, Martin Baptiste, yesterday said reading should be fun and enjoyable, thus guaranteeing that all children will want to learn to read, and no one gets left behind. Baptiste, who is also the chief education officer of the Ministry of Education, Grenada, expressed these sentiments as he addressed persons at the induction ceremony of persons to the Advisory Committee for the TT Centre of Excellence for Teacher Training (CETT), at the Normandie Hotel.

The Centre of Excellence for Teacher Training (CETT) is an initiative of US president, George W Bush to improve reading in primary schools across the Caribbean, Central America and Andean South America. The programme targets children from infants to second year who are at risk in developing their literacy skills, as well as those who are not able to function fully academically in school. Newly appointed Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Diana Rutherford, delivered the feature address on behalf of Education Minister Hazel Manning, who was unavoidably detained.

She stated that Bush’s initiative “comes at a critical time in the history of education when there is a desperate need to harness the effort of educators and redirect resources to the joint attack of the problem of reading literacy at its roots.” CETT was introduced as it was felt too many children do not attain literacy during their early primary years, in addition to the fact that teachers do not always possess the necessary materials to train them. Funding for the programme is being provided by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). CETT is being implemented in three phases with the first phase including Caribbean countries such as Jamaica, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines. TT and the Bahamas are to be in the third phase which will begin in 2004.