7 News Belize

UB Graduates “Smart” Students
posted (February 1, 2011)
A Graduation ceremony was held for the University of Belize on Saturday in Belmopan- where four hundred and sixty six students received degrees in the Associate, bachelor, certificate and Diploma programs.

Three hundred and twenty three of the graduates were females and one hundred and forty two were males.

Minister of Education and Youth, Patrick Faber was this year's guest speaker and he discussed the meaning of that tricky word, "smart":.

Hon. Patrick Faber, Minister of Education
"Ladies and gentlemen on occasions like these people often discuss who is smart and who is not smart. Whenever we discuss education in general we like to talk about smartness or who is smart and who is not smart. Today as we congratulate these graduates on their success I would like to revisit out traditional conception of what it is to be smart. Often our concept of a smart person is one who is intelligent or "bright" the ones who score high on tests, exams and IQ tests. Well I would like to challenge this concept just a bit and equate smartness with the concept of entrepreneurship. How could this be you ask? Well some time ago I was exposed to a conception of entrepreneurship that was also somewhat different than most peoples/ conception. Whenever we heard the word entrepreneurship we often think of the business minded person. The person who can conceive an idea and turn it into a business for self-employment to earn money. Well that maybe true but the concept of entrepreneurship to which I was introduce was that of entrepreneurship as making a conscious investment that is consciously investing time, effort and resources into some achievable goal. To me then being smart is less about innate intelligence or "brightness" as it is about setting or having achievable goals and being conscious investors towards those goals."

"We graduates we celebrate here today are all smart not because they have earn a certificate, diploma or degree in the academic sense but because they are conscious investors, they invested time and effort."

The theme for Saturday's graduation ceremony was - UB The Premiere National University: Preparing The Way Forward.

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