ON Friday, Minister of Education Jerome Fitzgerald will be one of two recipients of the Friend of the Industry Award to be presented at the Education Business Forum in New York.

This two-day forum is hosted by the Education Technology Industry Network (ETIN) of the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA).

Mr Fitzgerald and Senator Angus King, Maine’s first Independent United States senator, are the recipients of this year’s Friend of the Industry Award. Both recipients’ public service achievements have improved teaching and learning opportunities for educators and students.

Mr Fitzgerald has been working feverishly during his tenure as education minister to raise the bar and close the achievement gap within the public school system through a concentrated focus on improving the high school graduation rate, according to a press release from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST).

The ministry’s goal is to increase the high school graduation rate from 50 per cent to 85 per cent by 2030.

This is the thrust of the “Shared Vision for Education 2030”, a bi-partisan policy on education, the ministry said.

“In recent years, the Ministry of Education embarked on an aggressive initiative to upgrade technology in our public junior and senior high schools, investing more than $6 million,” the ministry said. “Through the INSPIRE project, the MoEST has created partnerships with Promethean and Microsoft to enhance the teaching and learning process within public school classrooms. Teachers are now being encouraged to embrace technology in the classroom and use it as a tool to add value to the learning experience. In short, the MoEST will implement an Education Management Information System (EMIS) throughout public schools as it seeks to keep a closer eye on students to prevent them from ‘falling through the cracks’. “It will also increase accountability up and down the education system.”

Mr Fitzgerald is the chair of the Commonwealth Education Ministers as well as chair of the Committee on Education for Education Ministers of the Organisation of American States.

“Many countries are looking at the Bahamian education system and some of the initiatives that have been recently implemented as a model for adaptation in their respective countries,” the ministry said. “While many argue that our system is broken, there are more things right than wrong. The global education community has noted with keen interest the Shared Vision for Education 2030, the Preschool Expansion Project and the INSPIRE Project among others.”