BO­BIE-LEE DIXON

(bo­bie-lee.dixon@guardian.co.tt)

At the Adult Tu­tors Lit­er­a­cy As­so­ci­a­tion's (AL­TA) head­quar­ters in Bel­mont to­day, 54 peo­ple were recog­nised with cer­tifi­cates and spe­cial awards for their out­stand­ing work and con­tri­bu­tion to the 25-year-old lit­er­a­cy or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Pre­sent­ed in three cat­e­gories, Live Wire took the “li­on share” of cer­tifi­cates with the ac­knowl­edge­ments of 40 peo­ple, while the cat­e­gories of AL­TA An­chor and AL­TA Leg­end con­sist­ed of sev­en re­cip­i­ents each.

As ex­plained by AL­TA founder and CEO, Paula Lu­cie-Smith, who was re­cent­ly award­ed an Hon­orary Doc­tors of Law from The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies' St Au­gus­tine cam­pus, awardees in the Live Wire cat­e­go­ry were be­ing recog­nised not on­ly as first-year tu­tors, but for their ser­vice which spans ten years and goes be­yond the class­room. They act in the roles of co­or­di­na­tors, ad­min­is­tra­tion, train­ers and at times even board mem­bers.

The AL­TA An­chor award pays re­spect to those with­in and a part of the or­gan­i­sa­tion who have re­mained ded­i­cat­ed to the mis­sion of AL­TA and who have en­sured qual­i­ty ser­vice is a pri­or­i­ty.

In the shape of a book­mark, which was pur­pose­ly cre­at­ed, the AL­TA Leg­end award tells the sto­ry of the re­cip­i­ents in this cat­e­go­ry who have stood the test of time dur­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion's growth.

Pre­sent­ing the award, Lu­cie-Smith said the book­mark sig­ni­fied the man­ner in which these stal­warts who have been with AL­TA from in­cep­tion, con­tin­ue to take the hand of tu­tors and stu­dents, push­ing them for­ward to suc­cess.

“When you think about how you use a book­mark. How do you use it? You place it in­to a book and you keep mov­ing it for­ward through that book; and there is noth­ing more that ex­em­pli­fies our an­chors and our leg­ends like a book­mark be­cause they put our stu­dents in­to books and they keep mov­ing them for­ward,” Lu­cie-Smith said.

The sto­ry of Al­ta Leg­end Awardee Agatha Williams was heart-warm­ing. Lu­cie-Smith spoke of an aged Williams who was in­stru­men­tal in get­ting AL­TA a 'foothold' in the com­mu­ni­ty of Moru­ga many years ago, where for­mer­ly it was al­most im­pos­si­ble to do so. Williams is like a “moth­er” of all sorts and a care­tak­er to all.

Speak­ing with Sun­day Guardian fol­low­ing the awards cer­e­mo­ny, Lu­cie-Smith who was al­so the re­cip­i­ent of the Nor­man N Sab­ga Caribbean Award for Ex­cel­lence, said lit­er­a­cy was a very im­por­tant is­sue that re­quires all the re­sources and en­er­gies it could get.

“Whether a per­son is six years old or 60 years old, that is­sue of lit­er­a­cy is a life chang­er.”

While Lu­cie-Smith was not able to give the Sun­day Guardian any sta­tis­ti­cal in­for­ma­tion on how much bet­ter T&T was do­ing in the area of lit­er­a­cy, she did in­di­cate that the agency had tonnes of anec­do­tal ev­i­dence which re­vealed chil­dren are in sec­ondary schools and are not read­ing.

“This is a huge is­sue, be­cause not on­ly is it im­pact­ing the life of that in­di­vid­ual but it's im­pact­ing the be­lief we have in ed­u­ca­tion. So when par­ents sup­port their chil­dren for five years in a sec­ondary school and they come out with the same low lit­er­a­cy that they en­tered with, what is a par­ent to think about ed­u­ca­tion?” Lu­cie-Smith asked.

She said the prob­lem will go be­yond that in­di­vid­ual child and it is an area that should act as a so­cial dri­ver for im­prove­ment in T&T.

“Peo­ple be­lieve in ed­u­ca­tion and if you de­stroy that be­lief, things be­gin to un­rav­el, be­cause it's what's pulling us to­geth­er—that be­lief that we share. So I think that is some­thing that we can safe­ly say we need to be­gin to ad­dress more ag­gres­sive­ly.”