KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) — More than 7,000 students in six primary schools are transitioning from a shift system to regular school hours, beginning this month.

This has been made possible through the construction of additional classrooms at the institutions, under the Jamaica Social Investment Fund’s (JSIF) Basic Needs Trust Fund (BNTF) programme.

The project, funded by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), makes provision for infrastructural development and essential training resources to improve literacy and numeracy among students at these schools.

The institutions are Christiana Moravian Primary and Mandeville Primary and Junior High schools, in Manchester; Ocho Rios Primary and Discovery Bay All-Age schools, in St Ann; and Old Harbour Bay Primary and Brown’s Hall Primary schools, in St Catherine.

For its part, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information will be covering the cost for training to address the issue of underperformance of students at these institutions in literacy and numeracy.

Teachers at each institution will receive specialised training in literacy and numeracy to assist in improving the performance of students.

Principal of Discovery Bay All-Age, June Clarke, said the students are grateful for the expansion, which will enable a full day at school.

“It will mean more extracurricular activities by way of clubs and societies, because of the move away from the shift system. This improvement will also mean that children at the grade-four level who do the grade-four literacy test will be able to put in more preparation for this,” she said.

The BNTF is a regional, grant-funded and poverty-reduction programme, which seeks to provide funding for school infrastructure, human resource development, community access roads, drainage and sanitation.

It is implemented locally by JSIF.