Incentive for youngsters

Parliamentary representative for Christ Church South Ralph Thorne and Christ Church East MP and Minister of Energy and Water Resources, Wilfred Abrahams, presented the students of St Christopher Primary School with a 50” Hitachi smart television this morning.

During the assembly, Abrahams also announced that as an incentive for the Barbados Secondary School Entrance Examination, commonly known as the 11-Plus, laptops would be provided to the Top Boy, Top Girl and Most Improved Student at the Silver Sands, Christ Church primary institution.

“It doesn’t make sense to give children gifts after they have finished accomplishing. Sometimes you have to put the incentive there for them to give them something to aim at,” explained Minister Abrahams on his decision.

Meanwhile, attorney-at-law Thorne warned the students to use technology wisely. He contended that the incorrect use of technology led to the displacement of core moral values and led to a de-sensitization among the youth.

“I think it is extremely important when we are talking to children to remind them of the values that actually make life a lot better and that you don’t necessarily get those values from technology.

You can only get those values from human contact – parents and teachers – and I think that is the source of the problem in Barbados. We have a generation of people who have no regard for values, who have no regard for human life and I think that is related to the violence because they [the youth] lack that essential human contact,” said Thorne.

He added that a number of youths were disconnected from the church and religious values and he believed that the Church needed to reassume the role as “chief socializing agent”. He argued that society needed to find “a healthy balance” between old values and new ideologies.