Mobile-enrichment cart to enhance learning at eight primary schools
Published:Wednesday | April 13, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Jermaine Francis, Gleaner Writer
EIGHT PRIMARY and all-age schools in rural areas across Jamaica are to benefit from new equipment and computer software that will enable them to combat illiteracy and low numeracy skills.
The schools were all provided with a combination of mobile-enrichment carts from the Ministry of Education's enrichment initiative and auto skills computer software as part of the Jamaica Partnership for Education (JPE) initiative, under the Jamaica National Building Society Foundation.
The mobile-enrichment cart contains several high-tech tools and other resources to assist with improving literacy and numeracy.
The schools that are to benefit are Osborne Store Primary and Junior High in Clarendon; Chester Castle All-Age in Hanover; Troja and Harewood Primary schools in St Catherine; Mearnsville All-Age and Strawberry Primary and Junior High in Westmoreland; Albion and Glendevon Primary and Junior High in St James.
Speaking at the disbursement ceremony at Osborne Store Primary and Junior High School, Anna Toby, project manager of JPE, said the software along with the carts will go a far way in improving the literacy and numeracy skills of the students who come in contact with them.
help stimulate students
Toby said these tools have been successful in the Jamaican classroom, and they will help to "stimulate the students' natural curiosity and make the classroom fun and exciting, even for students who are not performing at an age-appropriate level".
Lenoval Morle, principal of Albion Primary and Junior High, said he is pleased with the initiative.
"I embrace the programme wholeheartedly ... as the schools are now armed with weapons to eradicate illiteracy," Morle said.
Before the mobile-enrichment carts were given to the schools, teachers were engaged in a two-hour sensitisation session with the suppliers of the carts, Coldax Mart Limited. This, they say, will ensure that teachers use them effectively in the classroom.
Gabriel Heron, marketing and business development manager at JN Money Services, encouraged the teachers present at the ceremony to use the new technology given to its full effect in their efforts to transform the teaching and learning process.
The disbursement ceremony also included a reading session, where members from the JN group, as part of the JPE Bookworm Bites Project, read to grade-one students at the Osborne Store Primary.
The students were also given a demonstration on road-safety usage by the Jamaica Automobile Association.