Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

Mem­bers of the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist faith are wel­com­ing the an­nounce­ment by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar that her Gov­ern­ment plans to con­struct a sec­ondary school for the com­mu­ni­ty, re­viv­ing a long-stand­ing de­mand from with­in the faith for equal ac­cess to de­nom­i­na­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion.

Speak­ing in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, ahead of the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day hol­i­day on Mon­day, the Prime Min­is­ter said the move builds on ear­li­er work to es­tab­lish both a pri­ma­ry school and an ear­ly child­hood ed­u­ca­tion cen­tre for the com­mu­ni­ty by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.

“We un­der­stand that land alone is not enough. I have al­ways said the pass­port out of pover­ty, the pass­port to a bet­ter life, is ed­u­ca­tion. And there­after, when I was Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion, I worked with the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tists, and we did the pri­ma­ry school for them. I didn’t stop at pri­ma­ry school… we then gave the EC­CE,” she said, point­ing to ini­tia­tives un­der­tak­en dur­ing her tenure un­der the Bas­deo Pan­day ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said those ef­forts laid the foun­da­tion, but stressed the ex­pan­sion could not end at the pri­ma­ry lev­el.

“Let’s make a joy­ful noise un­to the Lord… and there­fore my next step is to give the Shouter Bap­tist a sec­ondary school,” she told Par­lia­ment.

The Prime Min­is­ter said the Cab­i­net has al­ready agreed to the project, fram­ing it as both a re­sponse to long­stand­ing ap­peals from the com­mu­ni­ty and part of broad­er na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

“Be­cause whilst we pro­vide for to­day, we must pro­vide for to­mor­row. We must pro­vide for our chil­dren… they have been yearn­ing, mourn­ing, groan­ing, shout­ing, we want a sec­ondary school and Cab­i­net, we agreed… we would give to the Shouter Bap­tist their sec­ondary school,” she said.

Long-time ad­vo­cate Arch­bish­op Bar­bara Gray-Burke, who first made the call for a sec­ondary school and has re­peat­ed­ly pushed the is­sue, said the need is root­ed in equal op­por­tu­ni­ty.

“Why is hav­ing a sec­ondary school so im­por­tant to the Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty? Be­cause we need ed­u­ca­tion for our Bap­tist chil­dren. That’s why we want a sec­ondary school. So what are we go­ing to do, just let them go out to get sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion? We bet­ter put them in­to our own school,” she said in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

“The Catholics have it, the An­gli­cans, every­body has it. But why would we not fo­cus? We’re born in this coun­try and we have rights to any fa­cil­i­ties that are in this coun­try,” she added.

Oth­ers with­in the faith say the is­sue goes be­yond ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion.

Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist leader and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Cul­ture Of­fi­cer Jesse Tay­lor said a sec­ondary school would al­low young peo­ple to de­vel­op with­in an en­vi­ron­ment that re­flects their re­li­gious iden­ti­ty, while pre­serv­ing tra­di­tions of­ten not taught in the for­mal school sys­tem.

“Ed­u­ca­tion is im­por­tant and aca­d­e­mics are im­por­tant, but peo­ple are not able to re­al­ly share what they feel, to learn, to grow and ma­ture in an en­vi­ron­ment. A lot of what I know about the re­li­gion, I on­ly knew be­cause I con­tin­ued to at­tend church… much of our his­to­ry re­mains un­doc­u­ment­ed and in doubt,” he said.

He added that a ded­i­cat­ed school would help em­bed the re­li­gion’s prac­tices in­to every­day life, rather than lim­it­ing them to cer­e­mo­ni­al ob­ser­vances.

“It could be more en­shrined… so peo­ple un­der­stand what they’re do­ing, why they use the bell, the voice of the ocean, the shell, the flags that we fly… so peo­ple no longer see it as some­thing strange or on­ly for cer­tain times. That’s not what the re­li­gion is about at all,” Tay­lor said.

While the an­nounce­ment has been wel­comed, key de­tails re­main un­clear, in­clud­ing the lo­ca­tion of the school, a con­struc­tion time­line and fund­ing.