$59M for 584 school orchestras

The decision was taken at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, and announced by Education Minister Hazel Manning.

At the post-Cabinet press conference at Whitehall, Manning said the aim was to provide 60 steelbands a year in the 584 schools starting in January next year. She said the project was established in 2002, when 15 schools and institutions, including the Valsayn Teachers’ College and the ministry were involved. That initiative cost $250,000, said Manning.

She said in 2003, 30 additional schools were added to the project and a Pan in the Classroom Unit was established in the Curriculum Division of the ministry.

The minister boasted that the mandate given for the years 2002 to 2004 had been fulfilled, in that instruments and accessories were either rented or purchased to ensure that the schools were outfitted on a timely basis.

Manning said last year, in collaboration with Pan Trinbago, pan tuners were procured to have 16 steel orchestras for 30 schools. She said the project had generated great excitement and, in that regard, the ministry was inundated with requests from schools for orchestras. She said music education is to be formally introduced at the CXC level for examinations.

A survey showed that 584 schools were still without orchestras, hence the reason for Government’s funding of the project in those schools.