Our theme for 2025 is My Sto­ry is an AL­TA Sto­ry and AL­TA’s year was filled with many amaz­ing sto­ries.

Last week, we be­gan this three-part ret­ro­spec­tive cap­tur­ing the stu­dent and tu­tor sto­ries as pre­sent­ed at AL­TA’s AGM by new CEO Ar­lene Wal­lace-Romero. Ar­lene con­tin­ues the 2025 AL­TA sto­ry.  

In April 2025, our high qual­i­ty took AL­TA to the World Lit­er­a­cy Sum­mit at Ox­ford Uni­ver­si­ty. Paula and Teju joined lit­er­a­cy lead­ers from 85 coun­tries fo­cused on the vi­tal im­por­tance of im­prov­ing lit­er­a­cy lev­els across the globe. There, they pre­sent­ed the newest part of the AL­TA Sto­ry: AL­TA On­line—Learn to read & spell, any­where, any­time, Caribbean style. 

Not on­ly did Paula and Teju share the AL­TA sto­ry, but they al­so lis­tened to sto­ries of lit­er­a­cy pro­grammes from around the globe. At the an­nu­al tu­tor meet­ing in June, Paula and Teju shared the in­sights they gleaned over an in­tense three days, and the learn­ings are work­ing their way in­to train­ing and our pro­grammes.  

For AL­TA, the ma­jor take­aways from the sum­mit were:  

• AL­TA is on the right track in terms of keep­ing up with best prac­tice in lit­er­a­cy teach­ing;  

• AL­TA On­line is clear ev­i­dence of this. 

Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion and Shell were a val­ued part of AL­TA’s sto­ry this year. They walked the talk, mak­ing AL­TA one of 10 re­cip­i­ents of their EPIC (ex­tra­or­di­nary projects im­pact­ing com­mu­ni­ties) grant. The $150,000 grant up­grad­ed this mul­ti­pur­pose train­ing room with new win­dow cov­er­ings, a pro­jec­tor and screen, new chairs and air con­di­tion­ing, and, of course, the AL­TA On­line Hub with new desk­tops for stu­dent use. 

The AL­TA On­line Hub im­me­di­ate­ly be­gan serv­ing the Bel­mont com­mu­ni­ty with an in­ten­sive dai­ly pro­gramme for post-SEA stu­dents from near­by St Mar­garet’s Boys’ and Melville Memo­r­i­al Girls’ An­gli­can Schools. The hub now serves Stan­dards 2-4 stu­dents from these two schools in ad­di­tion to Bel­mont Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry, a lit­tle fur­ther away. 

En­hanced sup­port for our class­es  

When our tu­tors start­ed the new aca­d­e­m­ic year, they were no doubt pleased to find they were sup­port­ed by a new data­base called MAST— Man­age­ment of AL­TA Stu­dents and Tu­tors.  

The need for a ful­ly in­te­grat­ed data­base that meets all of AL­TA’s needs as we grow and change, has long been a part of AL­TA’s sto­ry.

In Oc­to­ber 2024, AL­TA con­tract­ed a full-time data­base de­vel­op­er and I was giv­en charge, dri­ving this long-lin­ger­ing project to fruition. MAST has al­ready been put to the test by en­abling re­al-time da­ta en­try for stu­dent reg­is­tra­tion, and now hosts es­sen­tial tu­tor, stu­dent and class da­ta. 

Thanks to the data­base team— Alex Moonasar, Aris­ton Suther­land and Joanne Phillip—we will now be able to col­late the facts that will tell the sto­ry of AL­TA’s per­for­mance. 

Next week, stay tuned for part three, where you will read about sto­ries of AL­TA On­line which reached more stu­dents with a sec­ond Min­istry of Fi­nance project.  

In­ter­est­ed in join­ing the AL­TA com­mu­ni­ty? Sign up as a vol­un­teer tu­tor or stu­dent.  

Vis­it AL­TA’s web­site at al­ta-tt.org/vol­un­teer/tu­tors/ for de­tails and the sign-up form.  

Call 624-2582 or email al­ta­pos.tt@gmail.com   

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