PEOPLE'S National Party (PNP) President Portia Simpson Miller said the party is committed to a social agenda that will see the eradication of illiteracy within the next five years.

As part of the plan, there will be the recruitment and training of 400 remediation specialists to be deployed to schools, as needed, to ensure literacy.

The promise was one of several outlined in the party's election manifesto that was launched yesterday by Simpson Miller at the Courtleigh Auditorium in New Kingston.
Jamaica's literacy levels, according to official figures, have slipped to below 80 per cent.

At the same time, the number of uneducated and undereducated have led to worrying levels of literacy, with some secondary schools graduating illiterates.

Simpson Miller yesterday reiterated the PNP's commitment to education and told the audience that the party would not be making any promises it could not keep.

The anti-illiteracy programmes will be under the government's education transformation and reform agenda, and would target children from kindergarten to grade 12.
The prime minister said that under the reform programme, the exam fee assistance programme would be targeted to reach approximately 40,000 students annually. Currently, government pays the cost of selected subjects for secondary school students sitting external examinations. The subjects include mathematics, English language, information technology, a business subject, and a science subject.

The social agenda will also see students leaving high schools with at least a level one HEART certification in skill training, and an expansion of the National Youth Service (NYS) to train, and equip 20,000 young men and women per year, according to the PNP's manifesto.

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