Prime Minister Mottley: Climate School In The Works

Barbados is set to have its first climate school, to be developed in partnership with XQ Institute, as government’s presses ahead with its education transformation agenda to ensure that no child is left behind.  

Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley announced on Tuesday evening, that work will commence shortly at the site, located at Chelston Park, St. Michael, and construction is expected to last for approximately one year.

Additionally, Ms. Mottley also spoke to the site of the former Ursuline Convent in Collymore Rock, which will be the new home for students at Graydon Sealy Secondary School.  That work is slated to commence in the coming months.

Addressing the official opening ceremony of the Oceana Innovation Hub at Carlisle Bay, Bay Street, she said the Barbados Climate School will cater to students from fourth to sixth forms.

The Prime Minister also disclosed that two schools focusing on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, respectively, will be created to complement the Barbados Climate School.

“This is a journey that requires each and every one of us to participate and to prepare our children, to prepare our people, to become resilient, to recognise that we need to benefit from that which is ours, which is not only land, but the ocean, to understand it and not to be afraid of it.

“And ultimately, to recognise that we can lead the world by creating the Barbados Climate School, which will focus on persons from fourth form and fifth form, to Lower Sixth and Upper Sixth, recognising that on a parallel track, we will also create a similar school for Robotics and AI…Without these tools of resilience and inquisitiveness and capacity, our children are liable to become victims of this world rather than shapers of their destiny…,” Ms. Mottley insisted.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister added that the Oceana Innovation Hub was a gift to the people of Barbados from XQ and was “the anchor” that would allow children across the island to “find a safe space to understand how they have evolved as island people with a relationship with the ocean and how they must protect that ocean and protect themselves going forward”.

Ms. Mottley reminded the audience that educational transformation cannot be achieved in a year or two, as she thanked officials in the Ministry of Education for staying the course, the school principals for shaping the minds of students in partnership with the parents, and all others involved in the process.

There were also remarks from Minister of Educational Transformation, Chad Blackman, who stated that the Oceana Hub represented government’s efforts at rethinking the way students learn by giving them the tools to “become global citizens with Bajan roots”.

In her remarks. Chief Education Officer, Dr. Ramona Archer Bradshaw, said the Hub was a generational turning point and a promise to the island’s youth, a signal to the region and a declaration to the world that “Barbados is not waiting on permission to be a leader”.

“Two years ago, this was just a spark, an idea born of conversation, of following a belief that education in Barbados must be more…Today, the ‘what if’ has become the ‘what is’,” she stated.  

The programme also featured remarks from Chief Executive Officer of XQ Institute, Russlyn Ali; President of Michael P. Murphy Studios, the project and architectural design lead on the project, Michael Murphy, and a dramatic presentation entitled: Through the Eyes of a Child, among other offerings. (PR/GIS)