Minister of Education Implores Sector Partners to Strive for Excellence

Minister of Education, Hon. Andrew Holness, has implored all partners in the education sector to strive towards achieving excellence in the thinking, parenting, teaching and learning disciplines.
He emphasised the importance of the value of education, and the necessity of making sacrifices to achieve it.
The Minister was speaking at the official launch of the 2010/2011 school year, at the Belmont Academy in Bluefields, Westmoreland on September 6.

Minister of Education, Hon. Andrew Holness (left), being escorted on a tour of the Belmont Academy, in Bluefields, Westmoreland, by Acting Principal of the institution, Dr. Basil Chambers. Minister Holness was at the institution for the official launch of the 2010/2011 school year, on September 6.

Linking parents, schools and students as all part of a value chain, Mr. Holness said that in day-to-day living, there could be parental failure, school failure or students themselves failing to make the best of opportunities offered.
“When parents make the sacrifice, and when students make the choice to come to school, their schools must not fail them,” he argued.
“If parents do not fail, schools are less likely to fail, and if schools don’t fail, students will not fail,” he argued.
He issued a plea for parents in need to utilise programmes available to them, such as the PATH programmme, to ensure that their children attend schools. He pointed out that a good education was the only way to break the poverty cycle.
“It requires a parent to say, ‘I did not get the chance, but whatever-else I believe is important, I am going to put that aside, so that my child can get a chance to break the cycle of poverty’,” he said.
Meanwhile, President of the Jamaica Teachers Association (JTA), Nadine Molloy, pledged her organisation’s support, in consultation with the Ministry of Education, towards harmoniously tackling the challenges ahead.
“We pledge our support to this process that will see all partners in education treated with equal respect and regard for their valuable input,” she said.
Meanwhile, checks have revealed that all 164 schools within the Ministry of Education’s Region 1V (St. James, Hanover and Westmoreland) re-opened today without much difficulty.