KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) — State Minister for Education, Youth and Information, Floyd Green, has hailed the partnership to facilitate the teaching of the philosophies of National Hero Marcus Mosiah Garvey, at the Hydel Group of Schools in St Catherine.

Hydel has, since 2009, collaborated on this undertaking with the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), which was founded by Garvey nearly 100 years ago.

The programme is spearheaded by the Group’s Garvey Studies Department, which is chaired by current UNIA President, Steven Golding. It entails curriculum and training programmes for Hydel students at the early-childhood, preparatory, secondary and tertiary levels.

Green, who was speaking at Hydel’s annual Marcus Garvey Symposium today, said the teaching of Garvey “is one of the ways to truly revolutionise our early-childhood education”. 

“Our approach (however) must not be tokenistic…we must not be doing it for praise (or) because he is a National Hero… but… because his message is sound, relevant and necessary,” he said.

He said the Hydel/UNIA partnership has created an ideal blueprint for replication across the wider school system.

“We believe that the teachings of Garvey are culturally relevant and can be done in a creative way (that) helps us to instil and inspire confidence (in our students). So you have our commitment that we will work with you to expand the mission throughout our schools,” he added.

Green encouraged Hydel and the UNIA to explore a possible partnership with the ministry’s early-stimulation programme to enable stakeholders, such as social workers, to take the Marcus Garvey message into the homes of the clients with whom they interact.

“We oftentimes speak about some of the difficulties we have in relation to our youth. I think that (early-stimulation programme partnership) would help our young people, our parents and our country,” he noted.

In his remarks, Golding lauded the vision and “revolutionary spirit” of Hydel group president and founder, Hyacinth Bennett, in introducing Garveyism at the institution.

He said Bennett ensured that in launching the Hydel University College in 2009, a Garvey Studies Department was also established to undertake development of a curriculum for teacher training in the subject.

Golding said curriculum development was, thereafter, undertaken, targeting the preparatory and high-school departments. He said the experience has been “wonderful” and he now understands “what works in the classroom and at what level”.               

For her part, Bennett said Garveyism is a major plank in the programme of holistic education delivered to students.

She said not only does Hydel hold the distinction of being the only institution to have taught or be consistently teaching Garveyism over the past eight years, but also the privilege of having one of the subject’s foremost proponents, in Golding, leading that endeavour.