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Mem­bers of the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist faith are wel­com­ing the an­nounce­ment by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar that her Gov­ern­ment plans to con­struct a sec­ondary school for the com­mu­ni­ty, re­viv­ing a long-stand­ing de­mand from with­in the faith for equal ac­cess to de­nom­i­na­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion.

Speak­ing in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, ahead of the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day hol­i­day on Mon­day, the Prime Min­is­ter said the move builds on ear­li­er work to es­tab­lish both a pri­ma­ry school and an ear­ly child­hood ed­u­ca­tion cen­tre for the com­mu­ni­ty by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.

“We un­der­stand that land alone is not enough. I have al­ways said the pass­port out of pover­ty, the pass­port to a bet­ter life, is ed­u­ca­tion. And there­after, when I was Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion, I worked with the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tists, and we did the pri­ma­ry school for them. I didn’t stop at pri­ma­ry school… we then gave the EC­CE,” she said, point­ing to ini­tia­tives un­der­tak­en dur­ing her tenure un­der the Bas­deo Pan­day ad­min­is­tra­tion.