Author and former T&T Guardian Sunday editor Dr Kris Rampersad says special focus should be give to small island states by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco).
Rampersad, who represented T&T at the Unesco Executive Board during its 196th session in Paris, said because of the challenges of small states, countries like T&T required special focus within Unesco programmes and budgets.
She suggested ways of “deepening synergies in the areas of science, education, cultural heritage conservation and advancing the creative industries, and use of information and communications to achieve greater efficiency, effectiveness and cost savings.”
Rampersad also said there was a need to ensure balanced and equitable programme focus and allocations through the debates on Unesco’s role in the UN post-2015 education agenda.
She also called for “Unesco’s alignment with the Global Geo Parks initiative, protection of journalists, the centralisation of culture in development, and a deeper role of Unesco Institute of Statistics in matters related to SIDs.”
Rampersad has also advocated the rights to learning without fear, making classrooms safe zones, facilitation of technical and vocational education in the digital age, helping the disabled with ICT and developing global citizenship.