News

Make every child a project, says PM

Prime Minister Bruce Golding has urged teachers and parents to nurture every single child so that the country can realise full returns on its investment in education.

He was speaking Sunday at the awards ceremony of the Eastern St Andrew scholarship programme that is largely funded by the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), a unit of the Office of the Prime Minister.

"Every child in school must be a project. We speak of classes, we speak of cohorts, but the fact is that every single child in school is a project," said Golding.

"The success of that school, the success of those teachers, the success of the parents, the success of the education system is to be measured, not so much by percentages ... but the extent to which that system ... has been able to shape and mould and develop the mind of every single child and to make them better for having been through the school system."

The constituency, under its Eastern Bell Scholarship Programme, is funding the return of mostly 184 primary and secondary students to school.

Golding called on parents to follow up on their investment in education by becoming more involved.

"This investment requires partnership: the Government, the teachers, the parents, who, despite the $20 billion that they spend each year to support education for their family members, there is another level of investment that they need to make: interest, supervision," the prime minister added.

The Eastern Bell Scholarship Programme has been in place since 2002 and has received $3.5 million in funding from the CDF since 2008.

In addition to individual scholarships, the programme allows select students at Papine High School to participate in a work/study programme as a way to earn.

An additional element was added last year to place a GSAT specialist teacher for extra classes at August Town Primary School.

SLB approves loans

The Students' Loan Bureau (SLB) said it has processed some 10,000 loan applications for tertiary-level students by the beginning of the 2010-2011 academic year.

Only six applications are yet to be approved, the SLB revealed, which conforms to the approval rate of up to 98 per cent in the recent past.

While the loans granted to students cover tuition only, students who are assessed as being extremely needy are awarded a grant-in-aid, which is a maximum of $50,000 per year for university students and $25,000 for other tertiary students. Beneficiary students are not required to repay grant funds.

"Our system operates under programme-approval, that is, once applicants are approved they are funded for the full duration of their courses," said Annalisa Downes, public relations officer of the SLB.

The lending agency was thrown into a tailspin last month when its boss, Lenice Barnett, was fired by the finance ministry for alleged administrative impropriety.

29 students to getJN scholarships

Twenty-nine secondary students - 11 boys and 18 girls - will be formally recognised as JN Scholars by the Jamaica National Building Society (JNBS) at its Half-Way Tree branch on Sunday.

Since the inception of the building society's GSAT scholarship awards in 1983, approximately 348 students have benefited from the programme.

This year's GSAT scholarship recipients, including 11 children of JN Group employees, are among the country's top-performing students in the 2010 Grade Six Achievement Test, and will receive five-year scholarships to cover fees and other expenses.

Three of the recipients were awarded scholarships for being top savers in the JN Schools Savers' programme.

Later in the month, Jamaica National will also present 11 tertiary students with full tuition scholarships, bursaries and book grants to complete studies at the University of the West Indies, the University of Technology, and Northern Caribbean University.

JFJ expresses regret over cop's death

Human-rights lobby Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) has expressed "profound regret" at the drowning of Corporal Vincent Bent, who died last Friday after plunging into the Rio Cobre while chasing gunmen.

JFJ, often a harsh critic of the police force, struck a different tone in a statement issued on Monday.

"The circumstances surrounding Cpl Bent's death indicate that he was a valiant police officer intent on serving his country. The fact that his life was taken in such a tragic way is truly unfortunate."

It continued: "The loss of life of a police officer demonstrates the dangerous conditions our law-enforcement officials face each day."

The rights advocates urged the Jamaica Constabulary Force to ensure adequate preparation of police personnel and "comprehensive planning for future operations".