I understand that persons keep turning up for government- and private-sponsored overseas employment programmes with severe literacy challenges. The HEART Trust/NTA has been having similar experiences with some of its trainees and there are more of these citizens who have not been discovered yet.

My understanding of the problem is that for too long, it has been the attitude of the ruling class and the middle class that the elevation of persons from illiteracy and poverty is solely a personal achievement towards the selfish goal of prestige and accomplishment. There has been lofty talk about nation-building, but the truth is obvious.

Most Jamaican don't understand that the educational levels of all our citizens needs to be of a high standard to guarantee a high standard of living. The better educated we are, the better trained we can become, the more we will produce as a nation, and the more gentle we will be to each other.

- Handel Brown

handelgb1@hotmail.com

Longville Park Housing Scheme

Clarendon

Vivat! Floreat! Hamptonia

As an alumnus of Hampton High School in Malvern, St Elizabeth, I read with pride your article on their outstanding achievement in the recent CSEC examinations. After my initial elation, I started reflecting on what such an achievement really means.

It is not only about Hampton achieving so much academically, it is also about the message that the girls' school is sending to the rest of the world. That message: "Women are a forced to be reckoned with and you better believe it and be prepared for it."

I salute the Hamptonians. You are role models for all women, all young people and all Jamaicans at home and abroad - 'Vivat! Floreat! Hamptonia' - 'Live! Flourish! Hampton'.

- Christine Lee-McLean

chriscares@gmail.com

A gratuitous attack?

I wish to add my voice to your letter writer Dr Garfield Hall in condemning Dr Alfred Sangster's gratuitous attack on 'KC old boys' who have been in the vanguard of Jamaica's track and field administration.

Jamaica's success in track and field, one of the few things Jamaicans can cheer about these days, results from an outstanding system of coaches, athletes and administrators working together. Mistakes are bound to occur from time to time but to list a litany of issues from 1968 and seek to toss out the current officials on that account does not serve the national interest.

I am not a KC old boy but I commend those of that hallowed institution for their outstanding contribution.

- Errol Townshend

ewat@rogers.com

Ontario, Canada