Beginning September, physical education and sport will be added to the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) syllabus. Making the announcement, Minister of Education, Hon. Rev. Ronald Thwaites, said this proposed introduction, is a “positive development” and reflects the Ministry’s thrust to integrate more technical and vocational subjects into the secondary school curriculum. “This is a necessary rebranding exercise because over...

As it seeks to further harness the athletic prowess of students across the island, the Ministry of Education is putting plans in place to have at least one qualified coach available for or sited in every school by 2017. This was disclosed by Portfolio Minister, Hon. Rev. Ronald Thwaites while making a presentation at the Business of Sport International Conference...

The Ministry of Education is developing a regulatory policy that deals with illegal vending on, or around school compounds. Speaking with JIS News, Director of Safety and Security in Schools, Sergeant Coleridge Minto, informed that currently vendors are operating illegally without the required permits. “We have illegal vending taking place…. vendors who are selling without a food handlers permit, and...

More than 200 teachers of Mathematics in primary schools are to benefit from a series of development workshops, geared at enhancing competence in the subject. The sessions are being organised by the Seprod Group of Companies, in conjunction with the Ministry of Education. The workshop for Region 1 was held on April 10, while sessions for Regions 2, 5 and...

The Marlie Hill Infant School, built at a cost of approximately $24 million, was officially opened on April 15, in the deep rural St. Catherine community where Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Portia Simpson Miller, spent her early years. Mrs. Simpson Miller, who was the keynote speaker at the opening, informed that the school was built by the Culture, Health,...

Chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Commission, Professor Hilary Beckles, has charged young people across the Caribbean to take up the reparation struggle and carry on the conversation until the region has received justice. “This subject is going to go forward and we are going to have justice only when young people step up and play their role,” Professor Beckles said....

The Ministry of Education is recruiting Math specialists for the upcoming 2014/15 academic year, to be placed in several schools across the island. “We have had to find over $150 million extra this year to get the programme underway, which will eventually cost more than $1.2 billion over three years,” Minister of Education, Hon. Rev. Ronald Thwaites, has said. The...

A five-year, $100 million investment in six non-traditional high schools, by the Mutual Building Societies Foundation (MBSF), is now reaping rich rewards in the institutions. The MBSF, which was established by Victoria Mutual Building Society (VMBS) and Jamaica National Building Society (JNBS) in 2008 to carry out the Centres of Excellence initiative, targeted McGrath High in St. Catherine; Porus and...

Jamaica is expected to achieve the target of 85 per cent mastery in literacy among Grade Four students by 2015. This was disclosed by Minister of Education Hon. Rev. Ronald Thwaites at the Western Union Teachers’ Workshop, held at the Knutsford Court Hotel on Friday, April 11. Mr. Thwaites explained that this forecast is based on the trends from the...