St James PC unveils education projects
MONTEGO BAY, St James
The St James Parish Council this week unveiled two education projects aimed at assisting hundreds of students across the parish.
The two, a donation of GSAT textbooks valued at $250, 000 to the Flankers and Mount Salem Primary and Junior High Schools and Somerton All-Age and the launch of the Junior Council Book Bank, were unveiled on Monday and Tuesday respectively.
The donation dubbed the ‘Mayors’ GSAT Contribution’ saw the three selected schools each receiving 100 GSAT workbooks, mathematics sets, pencils and sharpeners.
Montego Bay Mayor Charles Sinclair said the two schools from his division and one from Deputy Mayor Cecil Davis’ division, were selected on the basis of their commendable performance in the GSAT examinations.
He said the move was evidence of the Council’s commitment to education.
The Junior Council’s Book Bank project was launched with a database of primary and secondary textbooks to be made available to the children of the parish’s registered poor and other destitute children.
The project, which also received a J$100,000 donation from the National Commercial Bank (NCB) Foundation, is expected to operate similarly to the book rental programme in secondary schools.
Undertaken by the Junior Council 2007/2008 on recommendation of Jeremiah Dehaney, the parish’s Inspector of Poor, the project will see some 352 in primary and secondary schools throughout the parish benefitting. Dehaney said these children would borrow books at the beginning of the school term and return them at the end.
Guest speaker at Tuesday’s launch Lloyd B Smith noted that the project was indeed a commendable one as there was great cost attached to textbooks for students. He noted that new books were added to the syllabuses each year, adding to the cost, a situation that could only be remedied by better streamlining of textbooks.
” I hope the project becomes a perennial one,” he said, adding that books were important tools for everyday life and that reading was essential to critical thinking needed in the country.
