The Pan in School project will be ex­tend­ed to all pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia an­nounced yes­ter­day dur­ing his brief ad­dress at the launch of the 44th Na­tion­al Schools Panora­ma 2019 at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain.

Gar­cia said there are few­er dis­ci­pline prob­lems with stu­dents at schools in­volved in the min­istry’s Mul­ti-Cul­tur­al Mu­sic Pro­gramme Unit (MM­PU).

“I heard men­tion made about the Mor­vant/Laven­tille project and that project is a shin­ing ex­am­ple of what mu­sic can do for our stu­dents and pan con­tin­ues to do quite a big deal for our stu­dents and for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

The min­is­ter said he will be ex­tend­ing the pan project to all 455 pri­ma­ry schools and 125 sec­ondary schools be­fore he leaves of­fice. He ex­pressed the view that pan in schools is part and par­cel of build­ing con­fi­dence in stu­dents.

At the launch, there were pow­er­ful tes­ti­mo­ni­als from a pupil of St Mar­garet’s Boys’ An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry School, the 11 times Ju­nior Panora­ma Champs, and a stu­dent of St Fran­cois Girls’ Col­lege, six-time champs, about how in­volve­ment with a school steel­band had been a pos­i­tive in­flu­ence in their lives.

MM­PU project co-or­di­na­tor Auburn Wilt­shire an­nounced the re­turn of mu­sic fes­ti­vals and a rov­ing car­a­van at each dis­trict where bands will be en­cour­aged to play all gen­res of mu­sic.

This year’s ad­ju­di­cat­ing for Schools Panora­ma takes place from Feb­ru­ary 11 to 15. Judges will vis­it 40 pri­ma­ry schools and 25 sec­ondary schools. Scores and re­sults will be re­leased on Feb­ru­ary 18 and se­lec­tion for fi­nal po­si­tions will be on Feb­ru­ary 20.