The United States Government, through the US Agency for International Development (USAID), last Friday awarded the Joint Board of Teacher Education (JBTE) of the University of the West Indies US$450,000 (J$27.5 million) to re-supply and re-equip Jamaican schools damaged by Hurricane Ivan.

International Consulting Firm DevTech Systems, Inc will implement the project.

William Hand, chief of party of DevTech Systems, and Marcia Stewart, JBTE administrator, signed a contract under which the JBTE will assess needs in 26 schools throughout the country, procure appropriate instructional materials, supplies and equipment, and provide delivery and installation of the materials.

Hurricane Ivan, which ravaged sections of Jamaica’s south coast with category five winds last September, caused severe infrastructure damage to schools across the island. Many schools were used as shelters for dislocated families and required rehabilitation.

The need exists to re-supply instructional materials, especially textbooks, teacher materials, and instructional equipment lost to or damaged by the hurricane.

The USAID donation forms part of a multi-faceted hurricane recovery programme established by the American Government. The overall objective of this programme is to assist the people of Jamaica to quickly recover, rebuild and resume their path to sustainable development.

Initial work has focused on the repair and reconstruction of schools damaged by Hurricane Ivan. The award of this contract represents a second phase of recovery activities to ensure that the renovated schools have sufficient instructional materials, supplies and equipment to support improvements in learning.

Over the years, USAID has been providing ongoing support to the improvement of Jamaica’s education system through initiatives such as:

. the Caribbean Centre for Excellence in Teacher Training, one of three such centres in the Western Hemisphere which focuses on the improvement of reading instruction in the first three grades;

. the New Horizons for Primary Schools project, which addressed literacy and numeracy;

. the Transitions Project, an early childhood education activity that intends to improve the quality of pre-school education and feeds into the New Horizons for Primary Schools Project; and

. the Uplifting Adolescents Project through which a package of remedial education services is being provided to at-risk, out-of-school youth with the assistance of a group of Jamaican social action NGOs.