Outgoing Chairman of the Caribbean Community, the Rt. Honourable Perry G. Christie, on Thursday focused attention on the youth and urged his colleague Heads of Government to ensure the Region’s young people were educated, and were immersed in the formal economies of Member States.
He also made a call for more emphasis to be placed on teaching methodologies to meet the learning needs of the bottom 50 per cent of students.
The Prime Minister of The Bahamas was at the time making remarks at the opening ceremony of the 36th Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM in Bridgetown, Barbados. The Meeting is being held under the theme Vibrant Societies, Resilient Economies.
Chief amongst my concerns and that of The Bahamas is the future of the young people of our Region and our country. This most recent event pains me greatly precisely because of the threat to 2 500 hundred jobs for young people just taken onto the work force. They are last in and first out in any crisis,” PM Christie said.
He told the gathering at the ceremony that the Region’s youth were” looking to us to help secure their future and dispel their sense of hopelessness.
We cannot surrender them to crime and criminality. I repeat we cannot surrender our youth to crime and criminality. It is our responsibility to ensure that they get a good education, become part of the formal economies of our countries and become beneficiaries of the practice of social mobility, equity and fairness.
Additionally, in our teaching methodologies, we must embark on programmes to focus on raising the educational attainment amongst the bottom 50% in the school system, imploring our educators to find progressive and innovative ways to meet the learning needs of every child.
The Bahamas Prime Minister warned the audience that if “we fail our youth, we do so at our peril”.
As PM Christie handed over the chairmanship of the Community to the Rt. Hon, Freundel Stuart, Prime Minister of Barbados he said:
It has been an honour and privilege to serve the Caribbean Community and represent its people in various fora around the world. As I take my leave, I simply implore us to preserve the momentum gained on various developmental targets and stand in solidarity against any actions that hinder these achievements or negatively impact the territorial sovereignty and integrity of our jurisdictions.
