Minister of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, Ronald Jones, places a commemorative Time Capsule into the ground as Principal of the Blackman and Gollop Primary School, Petrona Holder and her pupils look on. The Time Capsule, which contains school memorabilia, is scheduled to be opened in approximately 20 years.
HELP SCHOOLS
Thu, 10/06/2016 - 12:00am
Parents, Church urged to bring out the best in children
By:
Regina Selman Moore
Whilst schools are concerned with the pursuit of excellence and the attainment of success, it cannot be left to the schools alone to mold children and bring out their very best.
Minister of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, Ronald Jones, is therefore calling on parents and even the Church to aid the school in the process of shaping and molding the nation’s children, in an effort to get the best out of this present generation.
The Minister made the call as he delivered the feature address yesterday during a ceremony held at the Blackman and Gollop Primary School in Staple Grove, Christ Church, to celebrate the school’s fifth anniversary.
“Take your children to church. If you can’t take them, allow them to go to church,” Jones advised parents and guardians gathered.
“Schools cannot offer every single thing to mold children as they should be molded. There is room for the church to help in the molding or should I say the church should mold and the school should help the church mold,” the Minister stated, whilst stressing that in the past, the two entities worked together to build strong men and women.
“I want to see obedient children, I want to see disciplined children, I want to see children who respond to good advice from adults, I want to see children who care about each other, children who assist each other every day, in various ways. That is what I want to see. Those are also important attributes of learning,” Jones stressed.
He meanwhile had a cautionary word for parents whose words and actions, go against what is best for children.
“When I see parents, sometimes abusing their own children, I have a problem, I have a concern… we also curse at a level that other people in the world can’t curse and sometimes we use it within the hearing of our children or we use it to our children. Stop!” Jones declared.
“These minds are open. All of these little ones, from four years old to 11… they are learning. So they learn the good, they learn the bad and they can also learn the indifferent. So if we expose them to good, they are going to learn good. If we expose them to bad, they are going to learn bad and surely if we expose them to indifference, they are going to be indifferent,” he argued.
“So what is our collective responsibility? What is it that our hearts and our minds say to us? It should surely say that we must do the best that is possible every single day, every single hour, every single minute, every single second, to ensure that this generation (is) the best generation ever, in the history of our country,” Minister Jones stated.