T&T is over­flow­ing with tal­ent but there is a short­age of in­no­va­tion says San Fer­nan­do May­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo.

Speak­ing at the Na­pari­ma Girls High School an­nu­al speech day and prize-giv­ing, Re­grel­lo com­mend­ed the school for pro­duc­ing out­stand­ing cit­i­zens. He said while San Fer­nan­do is known as the ed­u­ca­tion cap­i­tal of the coun­try, suc­cess should be re­flect­ed in wider ar­eas of tech­nol­o­gy and in­no­va­tion.

“We have not been able to ad­dress these crit­i­cal is­sues de­spite our out­stand­ing achieve­ments in the field of sci­ence. We con­tin­ue to pro­duce an abun­dance of pro­fes­sion­als in fields that may soon be seen as over­sat­u­rat­ed,” Re­grel­lo said.

Say­ing T&T is not with­out tal­ent, Re­grel­lo called for prop­er chan­nelling of tal­ent to boost T&T’s in­no­v­a­tive ca­pac­i­ty.

“We need to redi­rect this tal­ent in­to cre­ativ­i­ty based on the tech­nol­o­gy that is avail­able to you. Our re­source base is so good that we should be high­er up in the peck­ing or­der of in­no­va­tion and un­for­tu­nate­ly, we are not. We are way be­hind Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica in ar­eas such as cli­mate change, green farm ini­tia­tives, ur­ban de­vel­op­ment, sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy. It is time we start think­ing out­side the box and be­come in­no­va­tors,” he said.

Urg­ing the stu­dents to uti­lize the tools avail­able to them, Re­grel­lo said stu­dents should uti­lize the ex­pe­ri­ences they and lessons of ci­vil­i­ty, re­li­gious and moral val­ues so much can be achieved.

Mean­while, mod­er­a­tor of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church Rev Joy Ab­dul-Mo­han called on stu­dents to strive to be more com­pas­sion­ate with oth­ers both in and out of school. She said men­tal health is­sues con­tin­ue to plague T&T.

“Stu­dents must re­main aware of men­tal health is­sues and be the kind of per­son who will show com­pas­sion and love. They must be the kind of peo­ple com­mit­ted to erad­i­cat­ing pover­ty, do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and look­ing af­ter the en­vi­ron­ment. They must strive to bring about ca­ma­raderie, re­spect and love for every­one re­gard­less of race or colour,” she said, adding, “ They must en­sure that they are more com­pas­sion­ate to peo­ple chal­lenged by men­tal health.”

Prin­ci­pal Car­olyn Bal­ly-Go­sine, who de­liv­ered the school re­port said the stu­dents have con­tin­ued to ex­cel. She said all 123 stu­dents achieved full cer­tifi­cates in the CSEC ex­am­i­na­tions with 100 per cent pass­es in 20 out of 22 sub­jects while 89 stu­dents ob­tained sev­en or more dis­tinc­tions.

She com­mend­ed sev­er­al teach­ers and pupils in­clud­ing Pres­i­dents Medal Gold win­ner Cas­san­dra Khan.

“Over the years we have grown ac­cus­tomed to hear­ing ad­vice and coun­sel from Dar­ren Dho­ray, ICT, Lur­tan Pat­ter­son who gave ad­vice on par­ent-child re­la­tion­ships, Catri­ona Per­sad, clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist who will­ing­ly as­sists us with stu­dents who may be in cri­sis as well as Sav­it­ri Nobee, our in house coun­sel­lor  who con­tin­ues to help many of our young ladies,” Bal­ly-Go­sine said. She urged par­ents to be con­scious of the dan­gers of so­cial me­dia.

“We have ob­served that many stu­dents en­ter Na­pari­ma Girls High School with is­sues per­tain­ing to the mis­use of so­cial me­dia. Once again I ap­peal to par­ents to please re­main alert to the dan­gers to which our young ladies are ex­posed on so­cial me­dia. Please take the steps to pre­vent your daugh­ters from en­gag­ing in the in­ap­pro­pri­ate use of the elec­tron­ic me­dia,” she added.