By Jolly Green

Saint
Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) is an island country located in the
Caribbean. It has only been a member of the Commonwealth of Nations
since 1979. It is often marked as a developing country known for
having a massively high unemployment rate. Unemployment is at
least 40%, indeed a gross failure on the part of the ULP government.
The salaries and income of workers are some of the lowest in the
Caribbean. The average monthly wage is about EC$1,300 [US$482].

 SVG
is known more recently as being run by a leftwing political band of
international scroungers and UN vote vendors. That is how they earn
the state's income, now hopefully conjoined with the medical
marijuana trade.

There is
also an illegal black market trade in marijuana that drives
underground revenue for many. Worse than that under the ULP watch,
SVG has become a trans-shipment location for Columbian cocaine via
Venezuela.

In
recent years SVG has made some improvements in education. Thanks
for that go to the World Bank who committed to achieving six specific
education goals:

1/
Expand and improve comprehensive early childhood care and education,
especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children.

2/
Ensure that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, those in
difficult circumstances, and those belonging to ethnic minorities,
have access to and complete, free, and compulsory primary education
of good quality.

3/
Ensure that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met
through equitable access to appropriate learning and life-skills
programs.

4/
Achieve a 50% improvement in adult literacy by 2015, especially for
women, and equal access to basic and continuing education for all
adults.

5/
Eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education by
2005, and achieve gender equality in education by 2015, with a focus
on ensuring girls' full and equal access to and achievement in basic
education of good quality.

6/
Improve all aspects of the quality of education and ensure the
excellence of all, so that recognized, and measurable learning
outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy, and
essential life skills.

In 2000,
SVG and 188 other countries and their partners adopted the two EFA
goals that align with Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2 and 3,
which refer to universal primary education and gender parity. The
World Bank recognizes that achieving these goals requires supporting
the full EFA commitment.

The
ACP-EU Cotonou Agreement in 2000, signed by SVG and 14 other
Caribbean nations, was the framework for cooperation, and the initial
basis for the improved education in the Caribbean, that Ralph
Gonsalves hijacked as their own and renamed it the Education
Revolution.

Effectively
programming the European Development Fund (EDF) is a major political,
policy and bureaucratic challenge, involving multiple stakeholders,
namely the European Commission (EC), the European External Action
Service (EEAS), 28 EU member states, the European Parliament, 74
governments from the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of
states and domestic accountability actors.

This was
not just a World Bank/ SVG project, this was an International Project
involving many players, and all the Caribbean adopted it. The
difference being only Ralph Gonsalves and the ULP claimed it as their
own and described it as a revolution.

Credit
for the Education Revolution that has been taking place in SVG since
2001, has been falsely claimed to be a Ralph Gonsalves and ULP
initiative, it most certainly is not. The ULP credits itself with
allocating more funding for educational programs than the New
Democratic Party did when it held power. Of course, more money has
been spent on education, that was part of the World Bank overall
project; most of the money came from others; nothing was funded by or
invented by the ULP. The ULP states that it will continue to make
improvements throughout education in St. Vincent and the Grenadines,
including strengthening its STEM programs and developing secondary
education. But once again, the STEM program was an EU initiative
taken and pretended to be a ULP initiative. 

Regardless
of who was in power, those projects were going to happen. Perhaps if
the NDP had been administrating this project, there would have been
some transparency for the public and obviousness of which
organization initiated the projects. Where the funding came from, how
and where the money was spent, and who received it. Also, how
contractors were selected or given the work to build, rebuild, and
refurbish schools. 

Even the
Zero Hunger initiative that Gonsalves and the ULP have claimed as
their initiative, is not theirs at all. The Zero Hunger initiative
was another EU initiative that the ULP and Gonsalves pretended were
their own. The EU suggested, even offered the enterprise, and SVG
signed up to it. 

https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/case-studies/eu-fao-partnership-help-governments-achieve-zero-hunger-improve-nutrition-and-increase_en

The SVG
Ministry of Education reported that the number of primary school-aged
children entering the first grade increased by 62.9 percent between
2013 and 2015. 

Both
primary school-aged and secondary school-aged youth showed enrollment
growth by 22.3 percent in other islands that has been exceeded. In St
Lucia, for instance, over 95 percent of Saint Lucia’s children aged
three to five attend one of the country’s more than 150 preschools
or 33-day care centers.

The
increase in education is tremendous and a fantastic achievement, but
for goodness sake stop attributing it to Ralph Gonsalves and the ULP,
they are quite merely pretenders in the overall matter. They only
administered the project; a project initially partially negotiated
between the NDP and the World Bank. The ULP just took it, repainted
it red, and pretended it was their invention. That is quite simply
another of the many lies and disinformation fed to the Vincentian
people. The Education Initiative was dressed up in a red shirt to use
as a ULP vote catcher and called the Education Revolution.

UNESCO,
UNDP, UNICEF, and the World Bank founded the Education for All (EFA)
movement in 1990 in order to improve education almost worldwide, and
in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. In 2000 the EU offered the
Caribbean millions for their education schemes; all the island states
took their money over the next few years. 

This
program claims many successes in SVG, including the addition and
expansion of the community college under the NDP watch. Additionally,
there has since been a steady increase in primary school teacher
training.

However,
there is still much room for progress. For example, there was a 36.4
percent decrease in the number of children who were primary school
aged and those who graduated from the last year of primary school
between the 2013-2014 and the 2014-2015 semesters. Furthermore, the
country has yet to achieve 100 percent enrollment. One of the most
substantial educational rifts is the lack of training of SVG
educators. As of 2015, 58 percent of SVG secondary school educators
had no teacher training.

Education
in St. Vincent and the Grenadines has room for development, and its
odds of success are favorable. It is widely believed that educational
success contributes significantly to the overall economic prosperity
of the country, improving the country’s employment rate and the
standards of life for many citizens. But to date that simply has
not been the SVG experience. With education must come job
opportunities, the ULP have created none.

The
disappointment with SVG has been some of the educational failures;
hundreds of children leave school every year unable to read, write,
or calculate simple arithmetical equations’. Many children drop out
of school and never return. That is what makes a claim by the ULP a
revulsion instead of a revolution. 

Others
are real achievers because, despite the hurdles that the students
have to jump, some have turned out to have more intelligence than
their teachers. That must be surprising to some, seeing as Gonsalves
claims that Vincentians have been mentally damaged through their
ancestors being slaves. I suppose if black Vincentians are told this
often enough they will actually believe it. Negativity breeds
negativity, being told you are stupid because your ancestors were
stupid slaves is surely pretty negative.

What is
quite frightening is instead of pointing the school achievers in the
direction of the UWI, USA, the UK, and countries where they will get
proper and real life-enhancing education and real degrees. Such as
are accepted anywhere to take them out into the world as world-class
leaders in industry and academics. They are encouraged to go to Cuba,
Venezuela, and other such third rate countries, getting third rate
degrees and finding after all that only third rate or no employment
at all.

Besides
the fraudulent ownership of the Education Revolution, there is the
fraudulent ownership of SVG’s medical clinics, which was the idea
of and funded by the EU. EU/SVG Cooperation 2008-2013 under the 10th
EDF, St Vincent and the Grenadines were allocated €7.8 million to
assist with the modernization of the public health care sector. While
Gonsalves hales the purported help by Cuba a communist leach, he
failed to tell us that the European Union-funded the new healthcare
clinics. 

So let’s
cut the pretense of the education revolution or any other social
revolution. But let’s watch most carefully as our school achievers
are being influenced by the ULP with achievement bonuses. The ULP
have plans for a bill to lower the age of voters to sixteen to be
introduced to the house sometime shortly. Like the general bribery of
the people with building materials, those young minds may fall into
the trap of feeling obligated and vote ULP.

Peter Binose: Has your child’s future been stolen by the ULP?

Read the
comments they are more telling than the article.

https://www.iwnsvg.com/2014/03/24/12500-laptops-to-be-donated-to-secondary-school-students-in-svg/

Peter Binose

END

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