In recog­ni­tion of the great con­tri­bu­tion made by Prof Car­ol Keller to the field of ed­u­ca­tion, na­tion­al­ly and re­gion­al­ly, Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing Fazal Karim has promised to launch an ed­u­ca­tion sym­po­sium in his ho­n­our. De­scrib­ing Keller as an icon, Karim spoke at a func­tion held on Fri­day in his mem­o­ry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine cam­pus.

Keller, a Cha­co­nia Gold Medal re­cip­i­ent, UWI stal­wart and ed­u­ca­tion con­sul­tant, died af­ter a short ill­ness on De­cem­ber 17, at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. In the pres­ence of Keller's wife Louise, fam­i­ly, col­leagues and friends, Karim paid glow­ing trib­ute to Keller, his for­mer teacher, re­count­ing his first class­room en­counter with Keller when he pur­sued his in-ser­vice Diplo­ma on Ed­u­ca­tion Ad­min­is­tra­tion at the School of Ed­u­ca­tion.

He said Keller was very knowl­edge­able, could have spo­ken on any sub­ject mat­ter and al­ways lis­tened, even to the ex­tent of nev­er mak­ing you feel you were not mak­ing sense. Karim iden­ti­fied him as one of the most en­gag­ing, in­spir­ing and mo­ti­vat­ing teach­ers he had known.

"He of­ten mixed his lec­tures with or­a­to­ry and hu­mour, cit­ing re­al life ex­pe­ri­ences to get across his lessons through which he touched the lives of thou­sands of teach­ers who pur­sued cours­es at the School of Ed­u­ca­tion, work­shops, sem­i­nars and pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes for staff at their re­spec­tive schools and ed­u­ca­tion di­vi­sions through­out coun­try and the Cari­com re­gion."

Karim said Keller's deep in­ter­est in re­search re­mind­ed him of a book he came across en­ti­tled How Chil­dren Suc­ceed: Grit, Cu­rios­i­ty and the Hid­den Pow­er of Char­ac­ter. In recog­ni­tion of Keller's con­tri­bu­tion, Karim told Louise and the School of Ed­u­ca­tion that his min­istry would host the Car­ol Keller Ed­u­ca­tion Sym­po­sium: from re­search to pol­i­cy, an ini­tia­tive that was ap­plaud­ed by the au­di­ence.

Karim said every year stu­dents en­gage in re­search at school or at the mas­ter's and doc­tor­al lev­els. "Much of which is un­known to ed­u­ca­tion prac­ti­tion­ers and pol­i­cy mak­ers. This is a fit­ting way to pay trib­ute to Keller who was of­ten keen to move from rhetoric to prac­tice," he said.