At the peak of a pan­dem­ic, where the norm of so­cial dis­tanc­ing and sep­a­ra­tion is be­ing pos­tu­lat­ed, two en­ti­ties, the Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of High­er Ed­u­ca­tion, Re­search, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (NI­HERST) and the Na­tion­al Li­brary and In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem Au­thor­i­ty have teamed up for the ben­e­fit of the na­tion and the ad­vance­ment of its peo­ple.

The col­lab­o­ra­tion was com­mem­o­rat­ed by the sign­ing of a Mem­o­ran­dum of Co­op­er­a­tion (MoC) by NI­HERST’s Pres­i­dent, Mar­leen Lord-Lewis, and NALIS’ Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor, Paula Greene. 

In its work­ings, the mu­tu­al agree­ment will fo­cus on key de­vel­op­men­tal ar­eas, such as the es­tab­lish­ment and/or ex­ten­sion of sci­ence cor­ners in the Sec­ondary School Li­braries, Pub­lic Li­braries and oth­er li­braries in the NALIS net­work; the fa­cil­i­ta­tion of in­for­ma­tion ex­change, and as­sis­tance with con­tent de­vel­op­ment for the ad­vance­ment of Sci­ence Tech­nol­o­gy and In­no­va­tion (STI) in the pub­lic do­main.

The es­tab­lished work­ing com­mit­tee al­so will co­or­di­nate ex­hi­bi­tions and ex­pe­di­tions to de­vel­op in­ter­ac­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion fo­rums/ac­tiv­i­ties to stim­u­late in­ter­est in STI; pro­mote prob­lem-solv­ing, cre­ative and crit­i­cal think­ing skills and to im­prove the pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school cur­ricu­lum sta­tis­tics.

Re­gard­ing the co­op­er­a­tion, Mar­leen Lord-Lewis shared: “Our en­vi­ron­ment is grad­u­al­ly trans­form­ing to a dig­i­talised land­scape and NI­HERST giv­en its core val­ues, has a so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­vide per­sons with the tools to cham­pi­on the vir­tu­al world of to­day.”

NALIS’ Paula Greene echoed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments: “The na­tion’s peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly our youth, is a re­silient body, once equipped with the mech­a­nisms, will progress so­ci­ety to one syn­ony­mous with sci­en­tif­ic rea­son­ings, tech­no­log­i­cal ap­pli­ca­tions, and in­no­v­a­tive ad­vance­ments. NALIS is poised to­wards pro­vid­ing such mech­a­nisms.”

Both en­ti­ties un­der­stand that their stake­hold­ers are now op­er­at­ing in a vast dig­i­talised era, hence the move to com­bine ex­per­tise and re­sources to im­pact the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. The signed part­ner­ship is for an ini­tial du­ra­tion of two years. How­ev­er, with the mis­sions of both en­ti­ties re­volv­ing around so­ci­ety’s de­vel­op­men­tal goals, NI­HERST and NALIS will con­tin­ue to fos­ter joint ef­forts in the ar­eas of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

The NI­HERST was es­tab­lished to pro­vide and pro­mote sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, and high­er ed­u­ca­tion while en­hanc­ing the in­no­v­a­tive, cre­ative, and en­tre­pre­neur­ial ca­pa­bil­i­ties in sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy rel­e­vant to the de­vel­op­men­tal needs of the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion.

NALIS is man­dat­ed to fa­cil­i­tate Trinidad and To­ba­go's cul­tur­al, eco­nom­ic, ed­u­ca­tion­al, and so­cial de­vel­op­ment.

“Through in­di­vid­ual com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives and proac­tive in­vest­ments in­to fu­ture-proof­ing the next gen­er­a­tion, it is ev­i­dent that both en­ti­ties share a com­mit­ment to at­tain­ing sus­tain­able so­cio-eco­nom­ic and en­vi­ron­men­tal trans­for­ma­tion,” an of­fi­cial state­ment from NALIS said.