Director of the United Nations Secretary General’s Climate Change Support Team, Selwin Hart.
UN official: Time to change educational system
Mon, 10/31/2016 - 12:00am
Director of the United Nations Secretary General’s Climate Change Support Team, Selwin Hart has added his voice to the call for a new educational system going forward.
He said in a dynamic world environment, the focus on traditional academia is not going to cut it if the nation’s youth are to be successful in their respective vocational aspirations.
“As a diplomat needs to adapt to changes in the global environment, so too does our educational system. This system has served us well in the past, but must now transition to better prepare our youth for participating in a dynamic, interconnected and wired global economy. We must move away from a narrow focus on traditional academic without sacrificing excellence or rigour. In the real world mediocrity is not tolerated – whether you are doctor, nurse, diplomat, entrepreneur, chef or entertainer,” Hart said.
Addressing the Graduation Ceremony for the Barbados Community College’s 2016 Class last week, he underlined that the island’s prosperity, well-being and survival are highly dependent on developments elsewhere. As such, understanding these trends and appropriately positioning the island is critical if it is to successfully navigate this current period of volatility and uncertainty in the world.
“This represents the best possible case for investing in our diplomatic service, as diplomacy, not military or economic might, is our only tool to influence developments on the regional and global stage,” he stressed.
He told the graduates that they represented the next generation of great Barbadian inventors and entrepreneurs.
“Think globally. When I graduated from Harrison College in 1989, I thought that I would be competing against my peers at other schools, including BCC. Your competitors are not sitting next to you. They are in Beijing, Delhi, New York, Berlin and Bogota. As I said earlier, consider the world is your stage and your marketplace. Learn a foreign language or two and never see these 166 square miles as limiting what you can achieve,” Hart advised. (JMB)