By Kadeem Joseph
Alumni from the nation’s schools are being encouraged to lend their support to these institutions during their professional lives as a means of upkeeping their legacies.
Deputy Director of Education, Ezra Jonah Greene, said the Ministry of Education encourages past students to “give back” to the schools from whence they came in order to “propel excellence” for years to come.
“[The] government is never going to be able to sponsor every aspect of our education system, we just do not have the resources or the human capital so to do,” she explained. “So, [past students] and institutions that give back to their schools are supporting education and education initiatives throughout.”
Educators at the Pares Secondary School were honoured during a Staff Appreciation and Awards Ceremony at Casa Palmadita on Wednesday during an event organised by the Pares Secondary School Alumni Association’s Georgia Cayman Islands Chapter.
During the ceremony, not only were all the staff and administrators, numbering over 40, recognised, but special recognition was given to retired teachers, Genevieve Browne, Gloria David, Hollis Francis, Veronica Gordon, Reginald Peterson, Bernadette Semper, Howard Warner and Leona Warner, for their exemplary service to the institution.
The Georgia Cayman Islands Chapter of the Pares Secondary School Alumni Association, which is only about two months old, has pledged to continue supporting the school in the hopes of improving the operations and sustaining the overall upkeep of the institution and its legacy.
So far, the organisation has donated a deep freezer to the home economics department, a flat screen TV and other necessities to the modern languages department, and a new drum set is promised to the music department in the new term.
The literacy department has been gifted reading materials, ten computers along with assessment tools, just to name a few of the timely donations made to the school.
Deputy Director Greene congratulated the association for its efforts, calling their contributions to the school “generosity at its highest.”
“When I listened to the type of contributions that they are making to the Pares Secondary School, it is one of the better gestures I have seen, and I just want to congratulate them for giving back,” she added.