OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore has un­der­scored the need for ear­ly and mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tion with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion ahead of the 2027 Na­tion­al Schools’ Panora­ma, fol­low­ing con­cerns raised over venue changes for the 2026 fi­nals.

The is­sue arose af­ter the 2026 Na­tion­al Schools’ Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion, which show­cas­es the coun­try’s top pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school steel­bands, had its fi­nals re­lo­cat­ed from Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain to Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, sched­uled for to­day.

While Ram­sey-Moore said Pan Trin­ba­go ful­ly sup­ports tak­ing the na­tion­al in­stru­ment to com­mu­ni­ties across Trinidad and To­ba­go, she main­tained that the short no­tice and lack of con­sul­ta­tion placed un­due strain on schools.

“Noth­ing is wrong with chang­ing venues,” she said.

“We have tak­en Panora­ma to To­ba­go, to South Cen­tral, and to the East­ern re­gion. Go­ing to the var­i­ous dis­tricts is ex­cel­lent. But the time was too short for the con­ver­sa­tion to be had.”

Sev­er­al schools, par­tic­u­lar­ly from north Trinidad, ex­pressed frus­tra­tion and opt­ed out of the com­pe­ti­tion, cit­ing the late an­nounce­ment of the venue change, which left in­suf­fi­cient time to re­or­gan­ise trans­porta­tion, lo­gis­tics and stu­dent su­per­vi­sion.

Ram­sey-Moore stressed that Pan Trin­ba­go’s con­cern was not with host­ing the fi­nals in San Fer­nan­do, but with the ab­sence of struc­tured di­a­logue be­fore the de­ci­sion.

Look­ing ahead, she said Pan Trin­ba­go ex­pects to work as a full part­ner with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to en­sure smoother ex­e­cu­tion of fu­ture com­pe­ti­tions.

“In 2027, I look for­ward to us work­ing to­geth­er as part­ners with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and Pan Trin­ba­go, to take beau­ti­ful youth fi­nals to the South,” she said.

At the same time, Ram­sey-Moore wel­comed as­sur­ances that the fi­nan­cial struc­ture of the com­pe­ti­tion re­mains un­changed.

She con­firmed that schools will re­ceive the same prize struc­ture as pre­vi­ous years, thank­ing the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion, her min­istry, and the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) for not in­ter­fer­ing with prize al­lo­ca­tions.

She added that Cab­i­net has agreed to con­tin­ue the grant for un­spon­sored bands, and not­ed that dis­cus­sions have al­ready be­gun re­gard­ing play­ers’ re­mit­tances, en­sur­ing that all fi­nan­cial arrange­ments re­main in­tact for par­tic­i­pat­ing bands.

“The good news is that every­thing will re­main in place,” Ram­sey-Moore said.