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National Literacy Coordinator, Laurel Brent-Harris, has asked that parents do their part in helping to raise national literacy levels. Mrs. Brent-Harris says that this is necessary in order to broaden the scope of opportunities available to the children, in light of the worsening global economic crisis. Speaking with JIS News recently, she said the literacy policy developed by the Ministry...

The Government has increased the 2008/2009 Budget by $18.4 billion, with the bulk of the additional expenditure going to liquidity support for the financial sector, as well as increased salaries for the police, teachers and health personnel. The Ministry of Finance and the Public Service will be lending $13.6 billion to the Development Bank of Jamaica(DBJ), for liquidity support for...

Cabinet has approved the award of two contracts, totalling just over $277 million, to effect construction work at two schools in Portland and St. Ann. Speaking at last week's post-Cabinet media briefing at Jamaica House, Transport and Works Minister, and Chairman of the Cabinet Infrastructure Committee, Michael Henry, told journalists that the contracts have been awarded to D.T. Brown Construction...

The Early Childhood Commission (ECC), in collaboration with the George Brown College and the Canadian High Commission, has launched a Best Practices Document for Early Childhood Development. The document, 'Best Practices for Early Childhood Development, Birth to Five Years', was launched in Kingston, recently. Canadian High Commissioner to Jamaica, Denis Kingsley, in his address, explained that Canada stands committed to...

As the Ministry of Education targets 100 per cent literacy, a number of interventions will be made at the primary level, including a screening programme for children entering Grade 1, to ensure early detection and treatment for those with special needs. "Full literacy rate, that's our target, 100 per cent, (so) the 10 per cent of persons, who require special...

A resource centre, valued at some $3 million, and equipped with modern teaching and learning aides, has been established at the Duckenfield Primary School in St. Thomas. The centre, financed by Digicel Foundation, was officially handed over to the school located at Hampton Court on January 23. The project involved the conversion and extension of a classroom into a state-of-...

Minister of Education, Andrew Holness, has said that tertiary students, who have benefitted from the Government's investment in their education, have a social responsibility to give back to the country. "I'm saying to you, the brightest of the brightest, that we have to put our minds and our hearts into building a new social contract...so if you didn't have this...

Resource rooms, equipped with technology to enhance the literacy and numeracy skills of students, will be established in some 12 primary schools across the island. Digicel Foundation is undertaking the project in collaboration with the Education Transformation Team of the Ministry of Education, and already, at least one resource room has been established at the Duckenfield Primary School in Hampton...

Education Minister, Andrew Holness, is urging tertiary students to maximise opportunities as the Government's investment in tertiary education is a trade off, which has a ripple effect on the entire education system. "I am trying to bring to you the challenges we are facing and the trade offs we make and how critical those trade offs are, so you have...

The Diaspora organisation Read Across Jamaica Foundation, has extended its literacy programme to the Auchtembedie All-age in Manchester, on Monday (Jan. 19) donating reading material and a computer to the institution. The Foundation, which was founded in 2004 by a group of Jamaicans residing in Maryland in the United States, is aimed at strengthening reading among primary and all-age school...

The Ministry of Education's (MOE) Competence-based Transition Policy, which will ensure that every child progressing to secondary school is literate, will come into effect in June this year. Senior Director of Human Resource and Modernisation in the Ministry, Ruth Morris, explained to JIS News that under the policy, no child, who is illiterate, will be allowed to sit the Grade...

The country's health sector has been boosted with the recent graduation of 44 general nursing and basic midwifery students from the Cornwall School of Nursing. Addressing the graduating ceremony held recently at King's Seventh Day Adventist Church in Mt. Salem, St. James, Rev. Everton Jackson, Pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church in Montego Bay, urged the graduates to use their...