The St. Lukes Primary School has secured their second win at the twelfth edition of the Primary Schools Kweyol Spelling Bee.
Lamar Sabaroach represented St. Lukes Primary in this year’s spelling bee. The Kweyol Spelling Bee is an initiative adopted by the Kounmitee Pou Etid Kweyol (KEK) to introduce students to the language.
Kia Roberts copped third place for the Penville Primary whilst second place was awarded to Peniel Innocent of the Woodfordhill Primary School. The competition was hosted on Wednesday, May 18 at the Alliance Francaise with the participation from two other primary schools to include the Christian Union Primary and the Atkinson Primary School.
Permanent Secretary in The Ministry of Education, Human Resource Planning, Vocational Training and National Excellence, Mrs. Chandler Hyacinth says the Ministry will continue to work with KEK to develop the creole language as part of the Ministry’s mission to teach Creole in all schools.
“The Ministry of Education supports whole heartedly the promotion of the Creole language in our schools and we embrace every opportunity that is available to us to encourage the promotion of our cultural heritage, not just the language. And we have done a lot of work with KEK in terms of preparing the curriculum, preparing our guide, preparing what it is that we need to use in our schools to support instructions in the Creole language,” Mrs. Hyacinth stated.
President of KEK, Mr. Raymond Lawrence says a Creole dictionary is in the works to facilitate the preservation of the language.
“We’re now hoping, that together with the Ministry of Education, we can build on further inclusion of the language, the Creole language, in our schools and in our national curriculum, and give greater promotion to this beautiful language of ours and in that way we will be helping to further ensure that the language will be around for a very long time to come,” Mr. Lawrence added.
Since the inception of the Kweyol Spelling Bee competition in 2010, the organizers have hosted the competition every year with the exception of 2020 due to the surfacing of the ongoing covid 19 pandemic. The Paix Bouche Primary School remains dominant with six victories thus far.