Edwin Allen High runs out of PATH money, discontinues lunches for beneficiaries

The Clarendon-based Edwin Allen High School on Friday announced the discontinuation of lunches for students under the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH) for the rest of the school term.

The current terms ends in December. 

A memo with the update has circulated widely on social media. 

"Once we receive additional PATH funds from the government, then we will resume this arrangement," it said. 

The school's principal Jermaine Harris said the announcement "was nothing abnormal" because "this has been a situation that we usually find ourselves in".

"The funds that the government sends have been used up for this term, so we usually inform parents... it's standard procedure," he said.

Harris added: "It's just that you get funding, and you as the school try to stretch it as much as you can, because you get $150 per student, but a lunch costs $350, so if you should give a student $150 it would not be adequate."

Robert Green, the school's chairman declined to comment, stating that he had no information on the matter.

Attempts to get a comment from Maureen Dwyer, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education, were futile, as several calls to her phone on Saturday went unanswered.

PATH is a government cash-transfer programme that targets Jamaica's most vulnerable populations. 

- Olivia Brown

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