STEM Scholarship Enables Maths Teacher to Return to Alma Mater

When Erica Thompson graduated from Charlie Smith High School in Kingston several years ago with 10 Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) subjects, she had one goal in mind; to become a teacher at a non-traditional institution like the one she attended.

“My aim was not to go to a traditional high school. My aim was to come back to, if not Charlie Smith High School, an inner-city school that persons would think nobody can get 10 subjects from,” she tells JIS News.

With the encouragement of one of her teachers, the then 17-year-old enrolled at The Mico University College to pursue a degree in mathematics.

With limited financial resources, she was able to obtain a scholarship under the Government’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programme, to complete her studies.

“Once I received the scholarship [in the second year at Mico] it put my mind at ease knowing that I didn’t have to fund my university tuition out of pocket,” she tells JIS News.

Under the programme launched in 2023, the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service, through the Students’ Loan Bureau (SLB), is providing 2,250 scholarships to boost the country’s STEM capacity over a five-year period.

Some 1,250 new student-teachers at The Mico University College will be granted full tuition scholarships, along with 1,000 students from low-income households attending the University of Technology (UTech).

Miss Thompson, who has returned to her alma mater as a mathematics teacher, is grateful for the scholarship and the opportunity to contribute to the development of students from underserved communities, both inside and outside of the classroom.

The experience of having to delay her scholarship application until her second year of study, due to not having the required documents, further fueled her drive to help students who may not have the information, support or resources they need to achieve their full potential.

Miss Thompson underscores that “life and the curveballs that I went through” have motivated her to use her role as an educator to help transform lives.

“I didn’t have certain documents that you are supposed to have at a certain age, so it was a difficult process to get the scholarship,” Miss Thomas shares with JIS News.

“When I started at Mico University, I didn’t have a TRN (Taxpayer Registration Number). I didn’t have anybody to look about that TRN for me to get into university. It was a stranger who had to do that for me,” she notes further.

“I wouldn’t want students, or my students at least, to go through the situation that I went through. I want to leave an impact on students, a positive one at least. I don’t want to be an educator who students are scared to come up to. I want to not only be an educator but a motivator, an inspiration to my students, to say, yeah, you can go out there and make something of this life,” she states.

Miss Thompson says that children can succeed regardless of their circumstance, and she imparts that belief to her students every day.

“They can [succeed] if they put their mind to it. I didn’t have a choice, because I am one of the oldest children that my mummy has. My brother and I came to this school… he graduated a year before me”, the former head girl and prefect points out.

“I had two other siblings looking up to me, so I didn’t have a choice but to succeed. Don’t watch the environment, and it is not about the school that you go to, it is what you go there and do. It is all about the mindset, don’t watch people or the environment; just do what you have to do,” she adds.

The young mathematics teacher, who tells JIS News that she has “always been good at the maths”, encourages students to embrace the subject.

“What we as teacher try to do is incorporate real-life situations into the lessons to help them relate it back to the situation that they live in; everyday life,” Miss Thompson says.

“I use a lot of manipulatives. There are also a lot of YouTubers that can help students learn maths using jingles and so forth,” she adds, noting that platforms such as Google and Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (GPT) can be used to gain a helpful understanding of the subject.

“But at the same time, maths is not something that they can just read; they have to practise. So, as a teacher, I can teach a child… but when you go home, you have to review and your parents have to check your book,” she points out.

Persons interested in accessing the STEM scholarship, may visit the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service scholarships page for application details.

Information can also be found on the websites of The Mico University College and UTech.