A chess learn­ing pro­gramme for sec­ondary school stu­dents in To­ba­go will be launched on Thurs­day at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion con­fer­ence cen­tre in Scar­bor­ough. The pro­gramme, a joint ini­tia­tive of RHAND Cred­it Union and T&T Chess Foun­da­tion, is in­tend­ed to ex­pose the is­land's stu­dents to the dy­nam­ics of the roy­al game which ex­perts claim to be a sig­nif­i­cant aid to the ed­u­ca­tion process.

The pro­gramme, en­ti­tled RHAND Scholas­tic Chess Chal­lenge, will pre­pare stu­dents for par­tic­i­pa­tion in two ma­jor chess tour­na­ments to be held in To­ba­go lat­er in the year. Ac­cord­ing to Edi­son Raphael, T&TCF pres­i­dent, his or­gan­i­sa­tion will pro­vide the nec­es­sary train­ing and coach­ing to give stu­dents the chess skills by which they can al­so en­joy a life-long ca­reer in the sport.

Raphael ex­pressed his ap­pre­ci­a­tion for RAND which he point­ed out is one of the sport's most ded­i­cat­ed sup­port­ers. He hoped that their joint ini­tia­tive would even­tu­al­ly lead to a re­vival of chess in the sis­ter isle which once pro­duced a num­ber of tal­ent­ed play­ers at the na­tion­al lev­el.

"Our prin­ci­pal pur­pose, how­ev­er, is to bring to To­ba­go's stu­dents the in­her­ent ben­e­fits of chess," said Raphael. "Coun­tries all over the world are recog­nis­ing what re­searchers have re­vealed about the use­ful­ness of this pop­u­lar mind game in the ed­u­ca­tion process. It is shown to as­sist in the strength­en­ing of at­ten­tion span, in­tel­li­gence, mem­o­ry and an­a­lyt­ic abil­i­ty of young peo­ple. Even­tu­al­ly, this can on­ly serve our coun­try in good stead. And this is why the Foun­da­tion is pleased to join with RAND in bring­ing this pro­gramme to the schools in To­ba­go."