THIS WEEK IN THE BAHAMAS (21 – 26 JUNE 2015) BY ELCOTT COLEBY
Bahamas Prime Minister: “Education transforms lives”
Telling Commonwealth education stakeholders and delegates that their gathering at the 19th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers was the most important meeting in the world, viagra cialis Bahamas Prime Minister the Rt. Hon. Perry G. Christie underscored the import of the conference by his assertion that literally “education transforms lives.”
The Prime Minister was delivering the keynote address on Tuesday night at the opening ceremony of this conference under the theme “Quality Education for Equitable Development: Performance, Paths and Productivity” where representatives from more than fifty countries converged on Nassau to develop a fifteen year education plan for the Commonwealth.
Pointing to a 2010 United States Census showing that an African–American male with a high school diploma is 70% less likely to be imprisoned than one with no diploma, Mr. Christie said that “throughout the world, the rate of crime falls when the rate of education rises.”
In making the case that education improves ones earning power, the nation’s chief referred to a 2014 OECD education report indicating that high school, vocational school and university graduates earn between 10% and 70% more than the OECD income average.
In making the connection between health and education, the Prime Minister referred to the 2013 OECD health report that revealed that women and men who are university graduates have an average life expectancy of 4 and 8 years respectively more than those who are not university graduates.
“Your work make all the difference” said the Prime Minister, “between freedom and incarceration; employment and unemployment; indeed life and death.”
Mr. Christie said that in a year when the international community will decide its global education goals, he can think of no better motivation to “identify realistic and practical measures to ensure that every Commonwealth country is able to provide a world class education.”
Minister Fitzgerald: “…we must be progressive in our thinking…”
Sending a clear message of innovation, progressiveness and planning to commonwealth education ministers and delegates, Bahamas Education Minister Hon. Jerome Fitzgerald told the Stakeholder Forum that the conference was just a reminder for education stakeholders to be “progressive” in their thinking and approach.
He was addressing the 19th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) under the theme “Quality Education for Equitable Development: Performance, Paths and Productivity” at the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island on Monday 22nd June. Delegates were in Nassau to craft an education development plan for the next fifteen years.
“We must possess foresight and plan with purpose knowing that the needs of the global education community, especially with the Commonwealth, will have changed tremendously” said the Minister.