Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Un­der­scor­ing the im­por­tance of arts and cul­ture, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath said they play a vi­tal role in shap­ing young peo­ple in­to re­spon­si­ble and car­ing cit­i­zens.

Speak­ing at the open­ing of an Art and Arte­fact Ex­hi­bi­tion com­mem­o­rat­ing In­di­an Ar­rival Day at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA) on Mon­day, the min­is­ter said ed­u­ca­tion must go be­yond class­rooms.

He said, “As min­is­ter, I see tremen­dous val­ue in what is tak­ing place here this evening. Ed­u­ca­tion must nev­er be lim­it­ed to the class­room, text­books, ex­am­i­na­tions or cer­tifi­cates that we may re­ceive. Those things are im­por­tant, but they are not the whole sto­ry. True ed­u­ca­tion teach­es a child who they are, where they came from, what oth­ers have con­tributed, and how to re­spect the dig­ni­ty of every cul­ture in every na­tion.”

Dowlath, who is al­so the MP for San Fer­nan­do West, said pre­serv­ing cul­ture al­so strength­ens na­tion­al uni­ty, tourism, ed­u­ca­tion and com­mu­ni­ty pride.

Too of­ten, he said, the arts are treat­ed as “dec­o­ra­tion” or “some­thing ex­tra,” but he warned that a na­tion that for­gets its cul­ture even­tu­al­ly for­gets it­self.

He added, “This is why cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions, schools, fam­i­lies, artists, his­to­ri­ans and com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions must con­tin­ue to work to­geth­er. A child who un­der­stands cul­ture is less like­ly to de­spise dif­fer­ences. A child who re­spects her­itage is more like­ly to build uni­ty. A child who sees beau­ty in the past is more like­ly to cre­ate re­spon­si­bly for the fu­ture.”

SAPA gen­er­al man­ag­er Dhanesh Maraj said the ex­hi­bi­tion was a trib­ute to the in­den­tured labour­ers who jour­neyed to Trinidad and To­ba­go years ago and whose con­tri­bu­tions have helped shape the iden­ti­ty of T&T and can be found in every cor­ner of na­tion­al life.

He said the ex­hibits were a re­minder that cul­ture is not some­thing locked away in mu­se­ums—cul­ture is alive, breath­ing and evolv­ing through peo­ple.

“As a na­tion, we must con­tin­ue to pro­tect our cul­tur­al in­her­i­tance with the same pas­sion with which our an­ces­tors pre­served it for us,” he urged.

Maraj added that cul­ture must nev­er di­vide peo­ple, but in­stead deep­en un­der­stand­ing of one an­oth­er. The ex­hi­bi­tion runs un­til Fri­day.