_{Photo: Job skills presentation}

by Charles Gladden

BELIZE CITY, Wed. June 5, 2024

Anglican Cathedral College (ACC) on Regent Street in Belize City held a Career and Art Exhibition, to feature the end-of-year final projects done by the third-form students of the school.

Approximately 70 students participated in the event, which highlighted different professions in Belize and the requirements needed to be qualified for the job.

“What we’re trying to do is prepare these students in this competitive job force. So, from third form, we’re working with these students, so that they’re able to navigate themselves in terms of finding a suitable career for themselves,” said David Milton, a teacher at ACC.

“Another reason we decided to do this career exhibition is, whenever you hear there is a business fair and people would go to these fairs, they don’t talk about the actual career itself, or how they can get to that career. They focus on the business [aspect] of it; they would present on the business itself, as opposed to informing people about the education requirement, or the skills and job opportunities for the specific career,” he added.

There was also an art exhibit where some 26 third-form students highlighted their artistic skills for their visual arts class, which is their final project as a part of the Ministry of Education competency-based curriculum.

“What you see here is students working, communicating, [and] problem-solving together. It has a lot to do with emotional intelligence, looking at people’s expression of feelings through visual mediums like what you see here, like paint, pastel, and things like that,” said David Anderson, visual arts teacher at ACC.

Every new change will always be met with some resistance, and so it is with this new method, as Anderson mentioned that it is still a work in progress.

“It’s been a growing process, getting students to buy in, even getting parents to buy in, because they’ve been used to the traditional net for so long … I wouldn’t say it’s difficult, but it can get better; there’s an adaptation [and] this is excellent proof of it. I believe we need to give them more time to familiarize themselves with it and respond to the demands,” he said.

The career and art exhibitions are from elective classes – Job Skills and Visual Arts – that the students have chosen.