“GENTLEMEN of Jamaica College (JC) and all Jamaican students islandwide who will be sitting the CXC/CSEC examinations, I implore you to make use of the opportunities being afforded.

“You owe this to yourselves to do your best and to deliver on your potential and on this tremendous investment being made by the National Commercial Bank (NCB). On your behalf I extend a heartfelt gratitude from the students, parents and school as this move will help us to stead the various ails we may face as a nation.”

This was the charge made by Hugh Lewis, school captain of Jamaica College in extending a vote of thanks for the NCB CXC/CSEC Principles of Business (POB) and Principles of Accounts (POA) fee sponsorship.

NCB Jamaica Limited through its strategic philanthropic arm of the NCB Foundation continues to deliver on its mandate of nation-building through the transformational power of education. By partnering with the Ministry of Education (MOE), the focus is to advance the United Nation’s 2030 Education Agenda and in so doing ensure that students leaving high schools are able to meet the minimum requirement necessary to matriculate at a tertiary institution, with the ultimate aim of creating a knowledge workforce. As such, over the past eight years NCB has supported more than 66,000 students through donations of more than $67 million.

This year, over $9.1 million will be paid to cover the fees of 4,674 students. Each year under the programme, over 4,000 applications are paid for by the NCB Foundation for students sitting CXC/CSEC Principles of Accounts (POA) and Principles of Business (POB).

Over the years schools, students, teachers and parents have sought to make use of this programme which continues to provide financial support to high school students across Jamaica.

On Monday, November 28, 2011, NCB made a cheque presentation to the Overseas Examination Council amidst a gathering of upper-school boys at JC, which was chosen as it boasted the most sponsored students per participating high school.

Prior to doing the official cheque handover to Hector Stephenson, director of the Overseas Examinations Council, Patrick Hylton, group managing director at NCB Jamaica Limited shared his experience from a defining life lesson where he encouraged the students by emphasising: “Never let someone’s opinion of you be your reality, as you are in fact the masters of your own destiny.”

Hylton closed off by inviting students, who assuredly repeated an inspirational quote by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow which states, “The heights by great men reached and kept, were not obtained by sudden flight. But they while their companions slept were toiling upwards through the night.”

Dr Mary Campbell, Assistant Chief Education Officer, Ministry of Education in her remarks endorsed NCB’s focus on educational excellence and acknowledged the importance of private/public sector partnership in advancing national development.