A to­tal of 134 stu­dents from schools through­out T&T grad­u­at­ed on Thurs­day af­ter a three-week train­ing of mu­si­cal ex­cel­lence. The ex­er­cise was un­der the Pan Mi­nors Mu­sic Lit­er­a­cy Schol­ar­ship Pro­gramme. The pro­gramme, which was held at St Au­gus­tine cam­pus of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and at Bish­op East High School in Trinci­ty, fo­cused on read­ing and writ­ing mu­sic as well as learn­ing to bet­ter play the steel­pan. The grad­u­a­tion was held at Queen's Hall in St Ann's.

Re­pub­lic Bank's gen­er­al man­ag­er of group mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­part­ment An­na-Maria Gar­cia-Brooks, who ad­dressed guests at Thurs­day's func­tion, said the bank had been as­so­ci­at­ed with the youth steel­band move­ment for the past 17 years, hav­ing been a main spon­sor of both the Pan Mi­nors steel­band com­pe­ti­tion and the Schools Steel­band Fes­ti­val. Desree Seecha­ran and Liam Gilbert were the two most out­stand­ing stu­dents of the pro­gramme.