All Systems in Place for New School Year

KINGSTON — The Ministry of Education says that all systems are in an "advanced stage of readiness" for the start of the new school year on Monday September 5.

Addressing a back-to-school press conference at his National Heroes Circle offices in Kingston yesterday, portfolio Minister, Hon. Andrew Holness said that the Ministry has done all it can, from the funds available, to provide schools with the resources needed for a successful academic year.

"We engaged in an extensive internal communications campaign with our board chairmen, our principals, our school administrators and parents…and from what I have seen, I am heartened that our system has the capacity and the will to have our school year begin in the seamless fashion to which we have grown accustomed,” he stated.

The Education Minister is urging schools to make the best use of the resources provided. "We must be frugal, we must be efficient, we must make the best of the limited resources that we have," he stated.

Providing details of the provisions made to schools, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Audrey Sewell, informed that tuition fees totaling $1.287 billion have been remitted to 167 high schools island-wide.

In addition, maintenance grants totaling $32 million have been uploaded to schools accounts, while the major grants of $100 million were sent to the regional offices, from which the schools can collect their cheques.

Mrs. Sewell said that textbooks have been distributed to 98 per cent of schools. "The books were sent to all schools but some schools, because of security issues and lack of adequate storage facilities, they asked the suppliers to keep them and so those should be in the schools the first week of September when school reopens. For Social Studies and Science texts, they are now being distributed in some schools," she informed.

She said that the distribution of furniture has commenced and will continue into next week. “We are purchasing approximately $30 million worth of new furniture, in addition to that, we have some furniture that we got from the Japanese Government and those we will use more so for the ASTEP (Alternative Secondary Transitional Education Programme) centres and we are in the process of distributing those,” she said, noting that the repair of damaged furniture is also being undertaken.

Turning to the allocation of commodities under the school feeding programme, Mrs. Sewell said that this is ongoing and will continue during next week. Region one schools have already begun to collect their commodities and haulage contractors will be making deliveries to schools located outside of the Corporate Area as of Tuesday September 6.

The schools on the nutribun component of the programme can also expect deliveries to commence on Tuesday, she said, while reminding school administrators that the cost of a nutribun snack is $2.00 per child.

Meanwhile, the Permanent Secretary said that infrastructure repairs will be ongoing, noting that there is "quite a lot we need to do particularly in the fencing of the schools to strengthen our safety and security programme."       

She noted that a programme has been prepared for institutions with sanitation and water supply problems, with a list compiled to those with pit latrines. "There are 217 (such schools) and of that number, 162 are still not connected to the NWC (National Water Commission) water mains," she said.

Mrs. Sewell informed that the Ministry is working with a committee that comprises the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA), Ministry of Health and other local authorities, for recommendation and decision on the method of proper sewage disposal for these schools.

By Chris Patterson, JIS Reporter