WESTERN BUREAU — About 1,200 students from the East Central St James constituency are to benefit from a range of school supplies and scholarships on offer under the Jamaica Labour Party’s ‘Labour for Learning’ initiative this year.

The official handing over is to take place at the Richmond Hill hotel in Montego Bay on Sunday, member of parliament for the constituency, Edmund Bartlett, told the Observer.

According to the MP, an estimated $1.5 million is being spent on this year’s programme, which was funded through the JLP’s Queen of Spain Fund and funds from his Social Economic Support Programme.

Of the $1.5 million, $750,000 has gone into the purchasing of books, uniforms and school bags, he said. Another half-million has gone into the funding of the scholarships that will benefit in excess of 28 students entering high school, community college and the University of the West Indies.

The high school students, Bartlett said, will receive full scholarships while the college and university students will receive part-scholarships.

The remaining $250,000 is to be spent on early childhood education.

Bartlett said he started the seven year-old ‘Labour for Learning’ initiative to give less fortunate students a chance at success through education.

“I am committed to developing the human capital of Jamaica. I think that the most important contribution that a political leader can make to Jamaica is to enhance its capacity to be competitive. And education is the means by which that competitiveness will be achieved,” he said.

Added Bartlett: “It is also an important vehicle for mobility, especially for the black masses of this country, whose parents are spawned out of slavery and the plantation system. And the truth is that there is a real class-colour problem in Jamaica, which only education can resolve.”

Since its inception in 1997, $3.5 million has been spent on the programme that has benefited between 5,000 and 6,000 students, Bartlett said. And while all the beneficiaries have not been academically successful, he said that he and others who work to make the programme possible were content to have given them a chance at success.

“We’ve not had all 100 per cent success in terms of the out turn of these students in school. But I am satisfied that we have had 100 per cent exposure and opportunities, which will reap its benefits in the long run,” he said.