Yvonne Webb

Re­turn­ing to the hum­drum rou­tine of the class­room af­ter the SEA ex­am is no fun for tired stu­dents. Their ob­jec­tive and that of their par­ents and teach­ers, is to re­lieve the stress. Now there's a new, at­trac­tive op­tion. The Di­a­ton­ic In­sti­tute of Siparia has start­ed a pre-sec­ondary pan pro­gramme as an in­no­v­a­tive way to get chil­dren in­ter­est­ed and keep them mo­ti­vat­ed un­til the Au­gust va­ca­tion. Janelle Par­ris, the In­sti­tute's sec­re­tary, ex­plained. "May and June rep­re­sent a pe­ri­od of in­ac­tiv­i­ty for our na­tion's pre-sec­ondary stu­dents. Di­a­ton­ic Pan In­sti­tute recog­nis­es that if this pe­ri­od is not prop­er­ly man­aged, it can pro­vide an op­por­tu­ni­ty for all types of neg­a­tive in­flu­ences.

"Di­a­ton­ic de­cid­ed to use this pe­ri­od as a means of im­part­ing pos­i­tive in­flu­ences and habits by of­fer­ing steel­pan class­es de­signed to in­form, up­lift and en­ter­tain." She said the class­es would serve as a launch­ing pad for stu­dents en­ter­ing sec­ondary schools and hope­ful­ly have a pos­i­tive ef­fect on delin­quen­cy and oth­er an­ti-so­cial be­hav­iour. Paris said the idea was first moot­ed last year, but took a while to be ap­proved by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, so it was shelved un­til this year. The pro­gramme which be­gan on May 14 and will run un­til the end of the school term, saw a to­tal of 42 stu­dents from both the Siparia Union Pres­by­ter­ian and the St Christo­pher An­gli­can School pri­ma­ry school en­rolled.

Par­ris said the cur­ricu­lum in­volves play­ing tech­niques, un­der­stand­ing ba­sic mu­sic and rhythms, and prepa­ra­tion to per­form at their grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny. The young pan­nists will per­form the na­tion­al an­them and an­oth­er tune at the cer­e­mo­ny. "These chil­dren are so ex­cit­ed about this pro­gramme. They re­port to school for their morn­ing wor­ship and then come over here, re­li­gious­ly, with their teach­ers, every day, Mon­day to Thurs­day to play the pan, con­gas, and drum set," Par­ris said. She said the tu­tors have do­nat­ed their time for the two dai­ly ses­sions, one which starts at 9 am and the oth­er at 1 pm. Re­fresh­ments are al­so pro­vid­ed for the play­ers.

Par­ris said there was a cost in­volved, which will be borne by the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment. "We have not re­ceived any cheques as yet, but we did not want to dis­ap­point the stu­dents again, so we have start­ed the pro­gramme with the hope that the min­istry will come through for us."