With the beginning of the summer vacation early next week, and the new school year in September, there have been special graduation programmes in all the schools. The graduations were particularly for students moving on to pursue higher levels of learning at other schools on the island.
But the main graduation, which occurred on Thursday, June 27, at the Teachers’ Resource Centre, was that of the 2013 Sixth Form Class of the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School, ending the graduates’ secondary education there.The theme of the graduation ceremony was “Overcoming Obstacles, Owning the Future.”
Forty-nine students were listed in the graduation brochure, but with eleven students pin-pointed as unfortunately not having met the graduation criteria.
Principal of the Comprehensive School, Mrs Ingrid Lake, commended the successful Sixth Form students on their decision to advance their formal education at that school – at an extremely minimal cost – and ensuring the completion of what they started.
“In a few weeks, by the middle of August, some of you will be extremely delighted with the rewards of your hard work when you receive your 2013 results from the Caribbean Examinations Council,” Mrs Lake stated. “Others, I know, will be disappointed as a result of their callous indifference and failure to maximise time, effort and ability that would have resulted in higher achievement levels. Whatever the outcome, you cannot undo yesterday, but you can act today and influence tomorrow. So do not allow yesterday’s failures to bankrupt tomorrow’s efforts. Learn from the experiences of the Sixth Form programme, and endeavour to use those experiences to guide your choices and purpose as you move into the next phase of your life.”
The Principal advised the graduating students that the political, economic and social climate on theisland was a complex one, but they were required to remain focused and be prepared for the many challenges they would encounter. “In the circumstances, you will have to exercise patience; and patience is that quiet faith and trust that things will turn out right,” she continued. “With patience you will learn to wait without complaining, cognisant that patience is a commitment to the future. I encourage you to exercise diligence. If you are lucky enough to gain employment, or have the opportunity to further your studies, give of your best and make good use of the opportunity that you have been afforded.”
The above immediate remarks by the Principal were timely in that, with the economy in a state of shambles, opportunities in the job market are extremely limited. Further, very few (if any) scholarship awards are available from Government due to a downsizing of the training and funding programme largely because of the island’s financial situation.
The keynote address was delivered by Family Medicine Physician, Dr.Patwin Adams, aformer Sixth Form graduate of the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School, who spoke on the theme of the graduation ceremony.“You are the exemplars of anovercomer and, in many ways, the future is already yours to shape,” he told the outgoing students. “You are really intelligent; you are disciplined; you are resilient; you have all the key ingredients of an overcomer. You have successfully, unlike billions of people on planet earth, negotiated around obstacles and already you have turned to your next step. You stayed awake through long hours…and you learned so much in a wonderful school that, however, lacked many facilities.”
Dr Adams concluded his address as follows: “Overcomers are problem solvers who conceive how to remove obstacles, believe in their mission and believe in themselves; perceive that it is for their own good, and the greater societal good; and retrieve the life lessons and skills to do it well for [owning] the future.”
The graduation ceremony was chaired by Mrs Shellecia Brooks-Johnson of the Ministry of Finance, Economic Development, Investment, Commerce and Tourism.
