Schools to celebrate Jamaica Day February 17

JIS

Monday, February 06, 2012

SCHOOLS across the country will be celebrating Jamaica Day 2012 on Friday, February 17, under the theme: ‘Celebrating Jamaica: Goals for Gold’.

It is an opportunity for schools to facilitate their students in understanding the accomplishments of the past 50 years that have propelled Jamaica to prominence in all disciplines of the world stage.

Speaking at the official launch of Jamaica Day, on February 2 at the Kingston and St. Andrew Parish Library, Minister of Education, Ronald Thwaites, noted that Jamaica Day should be used to emphasise the goodness and grace of the Jamaican people.

“This is our identity, it is our hope. Some of us allow our minds to be diverted by some of the things we see on cable television or we think that bling and bacchanal is all that there is to success in life. So, Jamaica Day calls us to something far more intrinsic, far more beautiful and far more long lasting than that,” Thwaites said.

He added that the Ministry of Education is pleased to support and promote Jamaica Day activities in the schools.

“Many of us aren’t really happy in our educational enterprise. School is supposed to make you happy. It involves lots of work and effort, but it’s supposed to make you feel happy and fulfilled rather than bored and full of drudgery. So, Jamaica Day is an integral part in making that happen and I am very pleased to be a part of this observance,” Thwaites said.

For her part, Director, Culture in Education Programme at the Ministry, Amina Blackwood Meeks, said that Jamaica Day is celebrated in February, so as to facilitate the Primary Schools whose culture module end in the middle of February.

“So, it would have some meaning to them, as the Secondary Schools we believe would already have the foundation for that kind of appreciation,” she said.

She said York Castle High School in St Ann has been chosen as the national focus school this year, as it best exemplifies the theme of this year’s Jamaica Day.

Jamaica Day is one of the flagship projects of the Culture in Education Programme. This year will mark the 10th anniversary of the celebrations and will represent a major contribution of the Ministry of Education to the yearlong celebrations of Jamaica’s golden jubilee independence anniversary, popularly referred to as Jamaica 50.