Premier Parry and his Cabinet during the presentation of the budget

Parry made the call on Monday, while delivering the 2007 Budget address in the Nevis Island Assembly in Charlestown.

The Finance Minister explained that the Government of Cuba had been offering scholarships in areas such as Agronomy, Culture, Sports, Medicine and Engineering but Nevisians had been slow in taking up these offers.

“We encourage the technically minded to see Cuba as an option. We are also requesting Nevisians to take up studies in other areas critical to our development such as Mathematics, Science, Vocational Studies and Technology. To facilitate this objective, students pursuing technical areas will receive priority in terms of financial assistance from government,” he said.

The Nevis Reformation Party Led Administration said it would honour its commitment to education and training and had budgeted $1million for training in 2007, a significant increase of $300,000 over the amount budgeted for 2006.

Notwithstanding, Parry said though his administration realised that $1million was in sufficient  for what it hoped to achieve and planned to aggressively pursue assistance from bilateral and multilateral sources to fill the gap.

Parry took the opportunity to thank friendly donor countries like Cuba and Taiwan, who, he said ,continued to contribute to Nevis’ human resource development through the provision of scholarships. He said the Administration was grateful for the assistance and looked forward to working with those countries in the future.

Meantime, Parry gave the commitment that his Administration would pursue quality education for all; cater to students with special needs, involve parents in the education of their children to a greater degree; to address problems of discipline, gangs and violence in the schools and to re-establish good values and standards in schools on the island.

He said the upgrade of school facilities in an effort to create an atmosphere conducive to learning would continue and so too would a number of initiatives including the provision of text books, the payment of examination fees for needy children and the provision of lunches at primary schools.

According to Parry, special education had received little attention over the years but that practice would change since it was the belief of his Administration that children with special needs, could play a critical role in the island’s development, once they were taught the necessary skills to function independently.

“We have already employed a special education specialist who has been given the responsibility to develop programmes and activities to enhance the standard of Special Education in Nevis over the next five years. With the construction of the new Special Education school and the programmes that will be developed in the future, we will revolutionise Special Education in Nevis,” he said.

Another important project Parry discussed, for which preliminary work would commence in 2007, was the construction of a College of Further Education to house the Sixth Form College, the University of the West Indies (UWI) Distance Programme and a Technical Education Unit.

He said the Administration was of the view that such a project would be vital to ensure that Nevisians had access to affordable training at home to help them compete in the job market. Also, that the technical programme was extremely important to ensure that those children who were not interested in the academic areas would be able to pursue a vocational programme that would prepare them for the workplace.

Regarding the distance education programme, Parry said his Administration was mindful that many Nevisians could not afford to pursue tertiary studies abroad and therefore it was the intention to expand the programme through the provision of additional space to allow greater access. In addition, they were actively seeking partners to introduce another module of external studies similar to the facility that Nevisians had enjoyed in the past with the Miami-Dade programme during the previous NRP government.

In keeping with its commitment to human resource development, Parry said that persons pursuing studies overseas  in areas which included Environmental and Community health, Environmental Science, Law, Business Management, Education, Building Technology and Hotel and Tourism Management had been assisted.

“We have also given a commitment to pay economic costs for six students who enrolled in the UWI and full cost was met for four of our health care workers who have gone into regional institutions to upgrade their skills.

It must be noted that assistance is not only given to individuals studying abroad but to individuals pursuing studies here. Presently we are assisting about 30 students and we intend to increase the assistance in 2007 to encourage more people in Nevis to pursue on line and distance professional courses. However, we ask that people pursuing these programmes undertake the necessary research to ensure that they enroll with reputable and accredited institutions,” he said.