A dream was re­alised yes­ter­day for Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar when the Char­ac­ter Ed­u­ca­tion and Cit­i­zen­ry De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme was launched.Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress yes­ter­day at the Hilton Trinidad, St Ann's, said as Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter she ful­filled one dream when cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment was abol­ished. But the ini­tia­tive to launch char­ac­ter ed­u­ca­tion nev­er bore fruit un­der the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, she said. Now it would be in­te­grat­ed in­to the pri­ma­ry school cur­ricu­lum at the start of the new term in Sep­tem­ber, she added. "Char­ac­ter ed­u­ca­tion teach­es chil­dren, from a young age, the val­ue of ethics and morals in form­ing im­pres­sions and per­cep­tions of their en­vi­ron­ment and in de­cid­ing how to re­act and face in­ter-ac­tions with their fam­i­lies, their neigh­bours, their teach­ers and their friends," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. She said char­ac­ter ed­u­ca­tion would al­so in­stil in chil­dren the moral foot­ing which would guide how they en­gaged in com­pet­i­tive ex­changes with their friends, in how they pur­sued aca­d­e­m­ic am­bi­tions and in how they struc­tured their lives to make in­formed choic­es about their ca­reer paths.

Ex­press­ing con­cern over school vi­o­lence the Prime Min­is­ter said bul­ly­ing had come to the fore, with par­ents and chil­dren tak­ing a strong stand against it. She said; "Vi­o­lence in fam­i­lies has been the cause of some of our na­tion's most haunt­ing tragedies in more re­cent years. "And for some, a turn to­wards vi­o­lence and crime has been the on­ly way to find a sense of self-worth and ac­cep­tance." Say­ing there was al­so an in­crease in cy­ber-bul­ly­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar added: "This in it­self is a demon­stra­tion of how young peo­ple, with­out a firm ground­ing in val­ues, re­spect and ap­pre­ci­a­tion of their own self-worth, as well as the self-worth of oth­ers, can ac­tu­al­ly cause men­tal and emo­tion­al harm to each oth­er." Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh said there was no ques­tion char­ac­ter ed­u­ca­tion was the fu­ture of ed­u­ca­tion. He added: "In­te­grat­ing char­ac­ter ed­u­ca­tion in­to the cur­ricu­lum helps to make a child ex­tra­or­di­nary, be­cause it teach­es prac­ti­cal life skills, learn­ing the dif­fer­ence be­tween right and wrong, im­prov­ing their so­cial in­ter-ac­tion and be­ing more aware of ap­pro­pri­ate be­hav­iour in dif­fer­ent en­vi­ron­ments and cul­tures."

He said char­ac­ter ed­u­ca­tion would cov­er a range of dis­ci­plines, in­clud­ing:

• Trust­wor­thi­ness;

• re­spect;

• re­spon­si­bil­i­ty;

• fair­ness;

• car­ing; and

• cit­i­zen­ship.

He said: "We are los­ing a whole gen­er­a­tion that is be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly dys­func­tion­al and un­con­cerned with ba­sic so­cial graces. "If this slide is not checked, we can on­ly ex­pect high­er lev­els of crime, ju­ve­nile delin­quen­cy and an­ti-so­cial be­hav­iour." Char­ac­ter ed­u­ca­tion would form part of the so­cial stud­ies sub­ject and the cost of mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­at­ing the pro­gramme was billed at $1.2 mil­lion, the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter said. "It is not much. The con­tract was about $1.2 mil­lion... $50,000 a month for the mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion of it for a two-year pe­ri­od, for which we have got­ten a lot of spon­sors," he said. GK