OPPOSITION spokesman on Education Andrew Holness has refuted claims made by the People’s National Party Youth Organisation (PNPYO) that a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) government would cease upfront payment of examination fees for all secondary level examinations currently subsidised by government.

According to Holness, he was quoted out of context, and that he was only making reference to what obtains in Barbados, arguing that a fresh approach was needed with regards to government’s current position on subsidising the examination fees.

“[What I was saying is that] we have to find a way to make the money that we are paying for the exam be an incentive for people to come and sit the exam and pass the exams,” he told the Observer on Wednesday.

“That is what happens in Barbados, you pay for the fee upfront and after you sit the exam and you pass it that fee is refunded to you. We (the JLP) never adopted that approach, I said we have to look at [new] ways, and I used that as an example,” the opposition spokesman explained.

Earlier in the day, PNPYO president Andrew O’Kola, criticised the JLP for what he said was a promise to deny approximately 25,000 of Jamaica’s poorest children the opportunity to sit the exams in the first place.

“If students cannot pay for the exam in the first place, then they cannot get a foot in the door to take the exam, and so government support would not be provided to those who are least able to pay. under the JLP promise a total of approximately 25,000 of our poorest children will be denied an opportunity to leave school with any qualifications,” O’Kola said at a press conference at the PNP headquarters at 89 Old Hope Road.

Calling the JLP’s proposed education sector reform strategy a “three-card trick”, O’Kola also discredited the JLP’s promise to introduce free tuition fees for all secondary students.

According to O’Kola, the abolition of tuition fees would cost the country $5.7 billion.

He said currently school tuition fees are split into ‘endorsed fees’ – school fees, and ‘auxiliary fees’ which are fees associated with school development and Parent Teachers Association, among other things.

He said under the current cost-sharing programme the government pays $1.7 billion, which is 50 per cent of the endorsed fees while the parents contribute $4 billion, which is their portion of the endorsed fees plus auxiliary fees.

The JLP suggestion, O’Kola went on, would see endorsed fees paid while parents would still be left to shoulder auxiliary fees, making the JLP’s pronouncement of providing free school tuition incorrect.

“Parents will still have to pay approximately $3 billion in auxiliary fees because the JLP is committing to paying $1.7 billion in endorsed fees, which they have not yet said how it will be funded,” O’Kola said.

But on Wednesday, Holness said that the JLP’s position had always been specific to fully subsidising 100 per cent of the endorsed fees and nothing else.

“It has always been about the endorsed fees and nothing else,” Holness told the Observer.