GREEN ISLAND, Hanover – The Registrar General’s Department has launched what it calls its GSAT initiative, a mobile service that goes into rural and remote communities across the island to ensure the proper registration of children.

The programme targets students who have recently sat or are preparing to sit the Grade Six Achievement Test, the examination which qualifies them for a place in the secondary school system.

The mobile service is not new, but this year it has a special focus on GSAT students. On May 16, the RGD journeyed to the Green Island Primary School in Hanover, where it set up office for a day under the GSAT initiative.

“We want to sensitise parents who are about to have children sit the GSAT in 2006 through to 2007, to get the birth certificates for their children, and those children who were not registered, we want those parents to start the process by getting the late registration or the late entry of name done,” said RGD communication officer Nicole Robinson, “so that when GSAT comes around, they do not have a challenge in acquiring a certificate.”

The department has already visited more than half of its targeted 14 communities.

“We will go on until May 31, when we will end at the Negril Primary School in Hanover,” said Robinson.

The mobile service has already been to communities in Clarendon, St Ann, and St Thomas.

Miss Robinson said that although the focus was on GSAT students, issues and questions related to other aspects of the services offered by the RGD are also dealt with on these visits.

“We hope to reach the entire Jamaica with our services through little campaigns like these,” she said.

Principal of the Green Island Primary School Monica McIntosh said the RGD initiative was welcome, as there were several students in the community who did not possess the proper registration certificates.