Parents Urged to Secure Children’s Birth Certificates for New School Term

The Registrar General’s Department (RGD) is reminding parents to ensure that they obtain a copy of their children’s birth certificate as part of back to school preparations.
To assist with this, the RGD’s mobile outreach team will be among the exhibitors at the third staging of the Grace Vienna Sausage Back-to- School Trade Fair on August 11 and 12 at the National Arena.
Speaking with JIS News, Marketing Manager at the RGD, Nicole Robinson noted that “the RGD’s team will be on hand to ensure that parents needing to make applications for their children’s birth certificate at the last minute are provided with easy access via our mobile team.”
Patrons she noted, will also be able to conduct record updating activities such as correction of errors; addition of father’s particulars; late entry of name; and late registration.
“In order to do late entry of name or late registration parents will need to obtain the relevant forms prior to the fair and have them completed with the correct information and signed by the relevant persons,” she pointed out. Meanwhile, Ms. Robinson pointed out that parents may also apply for the certificates online through the RGD’s website: www.rgd.gov.jm. She emphasized, however, that parents will need to know the entry number on the birth certificate to utilize this service.
Parents who wish to visit the RGD’s offices can obtain copies of the certificates within two weeks at a cost of $750. This sum will guarantee two copies of the document.
However, persons wishing to utilize the seven-day service will be required to pay $1,250 for the document. Certificates can also be accessed through the RGD’s next day service at a cost of $2,250.
If the entry number of the birth certificate is not known, the RGD will conduct a search for a charge of $100. “Information that will aid in the search include the date of birth of the child, name of the child, mother’s name, father’s name, place of birth of the child, and if available, date of registration,” the Marketing Manager noted.
The RGD would contact the applicant within 24 hours to confirm the outcome of the search. If no entry number is found during the electronic search, a detailed manual search referred to as a ‘form search’ is conducted.
If the form search does not reveal an entry number, this could mean that the child was not registered, and in that case, the parent would have to do a late registration, at a cost of $3,100.
“In order to do a late registration, three statutory declarations from the mother, father and a relative and signed by a Justice of the Peace, must be submitted. A copy of the child’s school record, along with a christening record should also be submitted,” Ms. Robinson explained.
Continuing, she urged applicants to ensure that all information is checked for errors before they are submitted to the office for processing, adding that “sometimes when the process to satisfy an application is delayed it is as a result of incorrect information that was presented to us.”