Yolan­da Adams' "Nev­er Give Up" was the song of choice played on the na­tion­al in­stru­ment at the grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny of the Class of 2010 at the Princes Town Methodist School, in South Trinidad. A fit­ting song, since it was on­ly a few weeks pri­or to the event that the pan­nists had gone through the rig­ors of Sec­ondary Ex­am­i­na­tion As­sess­ment (SEA). The piece was a chal­lenge, but the ace mu­sic in­struc­tor, Noel Akair, who re­mains pas­sion­ate about the steel­pan art form, de­cid­ed to merge the steel­band with vo­cals.

He ad­vised the stu­dents to "nev­er give up" and en­cour­aged them to al­low this at­ti­tude to tran­scend pan­dom in­to acad­e­mia. Ac­cord­ing to Skair, "the pan in the class­room project" has come a long way since its in­tro­duc­tion to the school in April, 2009 by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion. He said the en­tire school has been ex­posed to the pro­gramme, and since then the stu­dents have seen im­prove­ments in their aca­d­e­mics. In ad­di­tion, he said, it had de­vel­oped their re­ten­tion Lev­el. Skair said the non-emer­gence of a steel­pan from the cr�me de la cr�me from among all the class­es in the project was be­cause the pro­gramme was not de­signed for it.

He said there was a dis­con­nect be­tween the school syl­labus and the im­me­di­ate ob­jec­tives of the project, which was in­tend­ed to teach mu­sic lit­er­a­cy the­o­ry with the steel­pan as the in­stru­ment. He said it was meant to be a foun­da­tion for el­e­men­tary mu­sic, not grades. Skair said left up to the stu­dents, they would be in their glee if they recog­nised a nurs­ery rhyme, or any oth­er piece they were play­ing. How­ev­er, he said, it was a man­date from the school's prin­ci­pal, Car­la Mc Lean, that the grad­u­at­ing class play at least one song at their own grad­u­a­tion.