Kevon Felmine

Labour Min­is­ter Er­rol Mc Leod yes­ter­day told grad­uands of the Pointe-a-Pierre Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School that ed­u­ca­tion is their most pow­er­ful tool. De­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the oc­ca­sion, McLeod, the Pointe-a-Pierre MP, urged pupils to ex­cel al­ways de­spite the nu­mer­ous chal­lenges that life would bring.

McLeod spent a lit­tle more than an hour speak­ing and pos­ing for pic­tures with the stu­dents. Re­cent­ly, the for­mer trade union leader was the sub­ject of crit­i­cism from par­ents of the Union Pres­by­ter­ian School in Clax­ton Bay. They claimed he failed to show con­cern over the di­lap­i­dat­ed con­di­tion of the school which is in his con­stituen­cy.

McLeod told pupils that de­spite the Pointe-a-Pierre school fac­ing chal­lenges, in its ear­ly days when it was in a wood­en build­ing, they were able to pro­duce a num­ber of per­son­al­i­ties who made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to Trinidad and To­ba­go so­ci­ety. He cit­ed the names of re­tired en­gi­neer Den­nis Lal­la, as­sis­tant man­ag­er of the En­gi­neer­ing De­part­ment at Petrotrin Hugh Has­sanali and school teacher Ian An­drews.

"My dear grad­u­ates, try to al­ways be pos­i­tive, work hard and you will reap the re­wards. In to­day's world ed­u­ca­tion is one of the most im­por­tant tools that you can have. To be a teacher, lawyer, bus dri­ver, plumber, po­lice of­fi­cer, elec­tri­cian, doc­tor, min­is­ter-or to func­tion in any oc­cu­pa­tion that your heart de­sires-you must be ed­u­cat­ed.

"Make time to fo­cus on what is im­por­tant to suc­ceed in life: rev­er­ence for God, ho­n­our your par­ents, re­spect your el­ders and make every ef­fort to en­sure you study hard, so your par­ents, teach­ers and your coun­try will be proud of you," McLeod said.