Tree planting marks Education Month

Ministry officials participating in the tree planting exercise at South Ruimveldt Park, Primary School  (DPI photo)
Ministry officials participating in the tree planting exercise at South Ruimveldt Park, Primary School  (DPI photo)

The Ministry of Education yesterday participated in countrywide tree-planting exercises for schools in observance of Education Month 2017.

The Department of Public Information (DPI) said that Minister of Education, Nicolette Henry joined the students and teachers of the Roxanne Burnham Nursery School in the South Georgetown area to roll out the programme.

DPI said that as the minister transferred pear and guava seedlings into the soil, in the school’s compound, students and teachers sang a special ‘tree planting’ song. The nursery students also assisted the minister in transferring and watering the seedlings soon after.

Henry said that the tree planting programme is also in keeping with the Government’s broad vision of a Green Guyana.

“We thought from a very early age we should introduce our children, (particularly those children in school) to the benefits of the whole greening; the reason why we should have plants, how they balance the environment, how important it is and to assist with all the global warming effects we are feeling at this point in time,” the minister said.

According to Henry, students should be educated from an early age on the importance of trees to the environment and development.  “The students more or less will have to be taught at an early age to protect, to conserve and to promote the whole greening and sustainable development which the government is pushing at this time,” she said.

DPI said that Chief Education Officer Marcel Hutson and other ministry officials also participated in similar exercises at the South Ruimveldt Park Primary and the Tucville Secondary schools in Georgetown.