July 5, 2007
Dear Editor,
Please allow me to send my congratulations to all the PSE top performers – all 26 of them – 15 are from the Belize District, 6 from the Orange Walk District and 5 from the Cayo District. Well done!!
However, I can’t help but wonder who the top performers in Corozal, Stann Creek, and especially Toledo, are. I believe the system used for honoring the top performers should be revisited. While I must agree with Minister Fonseca that we should “never use poverty as an excuse for failure,” I am also of the opinion that the top Toledo performer deserves to be honored right alongside the top Belize District performer regardless of actual grade or rank at the national level.
May I suggest that the Ministry of Education consider honoring the top four performers for each district, so that the annual PSE awards ceremony does not become an exclusive affair? While there may not be a “secret formula” in any of the schools of the national top performers, we certainly must know that the realities and opportunites of children attending Hummingbird Elementary School, for example, could be quite different from those of children attending, let’s say, St. Peter Claver.
Respectfully,
Miriam O. Serrut