Soyi­ni Grey

Se­nior Pro­duc­er

soyi­ni.grey@guardian.co.tt

Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) pres­i­dent Ains­ley King says the Na­tion­al Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch is an in­sti­tu­tion that will not be harmed by its non-in­clu­sion in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s Schools’ Car­ni­val Events 2026 list.

How­ev­er, the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry has made it clear that there have been no changes to its list of Car­ni­val events, and it has nev­er or­gan­ised a ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion, say­ing this has al­ways been done by TU­CO.

Re­spond­ing to pub­lic con­cerns raised over the non-in­clu­sion of the Na­tion­al Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch in the min­istry’s Schools’ Car­ni­val Events 2026 list, King yes­ter­day said it was not a con­cern and re­mind­ed that his or­gan­i­sa­tion must work close­ly with the min­istry to hold the com­pe­ti­tion re­gard­less.

“To get ac­cess to the schools, we have to go through the Min­istry (of Ed­u­ca­tion), where the reg­is­tra­tion process and all of that is con­cerned. Cer­tain doc­u­ments have to be signed through the min­istry,” King said.

The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry’s 2025 and 2024 lists fea­tured the same four events as this year: Na­tion­al School’s Panora­ma, Ju­nior So­ca Com­pe­ti­tion, In­tel­lec­tu­al Car­ni­val Chut­ney So­ca Com­pe­ti­tion and Schools’ Tas­sara­ma Com­pe­ti­tion. The last time the Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch was in­clud­ed in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s list was in 2023.

How­ev­er, the Na­tion­al Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch is in­clud­ed in the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion’s 2026 Cal­en­dar of Events. It lists the se­mi-fi­nals as be­ing sched­uled for Jan­u­ary 31 and fi­nals on Feb­ru­ary 12 as the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch.

King said the Na­tion­al Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion cel­e­brates its 50th an­niver­sary this year and has a long and sto­ried lega­cy with­in Car­ni­val, hav­ing pro­duced the likes of Aaron Dun­can, De­stra Gar­cia and Machel Mon­tano. This, he said, is un­like the events on the min­istry’s list.

“I don’t think that that is a con­cern be­cause, as you see, it is 50 years we talk­ing about here, and most of the com­pe­ti­tion...that is un­der the min­istry, some of them are as re­cent as two years ago. Where the Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so is con­cerned, that is so sol­id there is no need for the in­ter­ven­tion of the min­istry,” he said.