The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion says it is cau­tious­ly op­ti­mistic about the pro­posed changes to the ed­u­ca­tion cur­ricu­lum, (through the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry), by prime min­is­ter-des­ig­nate Stu­art Young.

At the pre­sen­ta­tion cer­e­mo­ny of the He­roes Foun­da­tion On Wednes­day, Min­is­ter Young said he wants to change the coun­try’s cur­rent ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, shift­ing from the colo­nial struc­ture to one that’s more re­lat­able to T&T's cul­ture,  in­cor­po­rat­ing Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence (AI) and oth­er tech­nol­o­gy.

Re­spond­ing to the pro­pos­al yes­ter­day, TUT­TA's Pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin said, "We are elat­ed that a high-rank­ing mem­ber of the Cab­i­net and Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go has ad­mit­ted that our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem is a colo­nial one and re­forms need to take in­to ac­count the cul­ture and the needs of the na­tion."

How­ev­er, Lum Kin said he is not ready to jump for joy, just yet.

"We note that Min­is­ter Young is a politi­cian and we are quite wary of the promis­es of politi­cians in the past, but TUT­TA is quite will­ing to give the prime min­is­ter to be the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­liv­er on his promis­es."

He added there are many oth­er is­sues with­in the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem which need to be ad­dressed in­clud­ing the state of some schools.

Dur­ing the He­roes Foun­da­tion cer­e­mo­ny, where over one thou­sand sec­ondary school stu­dents were present, Young said the youth will play a piv­otal role in his plans for the coun­try when he be­comes prime min­is­ter.

The He­roes Foun­da­tion Pro­gramme fo­cus­es on youth de­vel­op­ment, in­clud­ing fi­nan­cial lit­er­a­cy.