THE National Parent-Teacher Association of Jamaica (NPTAJ) has come out in support of the Alternative Secondary Transition Education Programme (ASTEP) while noting its own efforts to ensure it is properly resourced in order to adequately boost literacy levels among the students who are enrolled.

“I can tell you one thing, ASTEP and the CAP (Career Advancement Programme) are really some programmes which have been implemented that we really need. And if the schools are equipped with the resources, the better off they will be,” NPTAJ president Marcia McCausland-Wilson told Career & Education.

Her statement follows recent remarks from Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) president Paul Adams who has strongly criticised ASTEP, which he described as under-resourced while suggesting it was not adequately addressing the needs of its young participants.

“The only positive thing about the centres is that the teachers have continued to work with the students despite the challenges,” he told Career & Education more than a week ago, while at the same time calling on the NPTAJ to do its own inspection of the 258 ASTEP centres.

“I want them (the NPTAJ) to visit some of these ASTEP centres to see whether or not people’s children are exposed to the quality and standard of programmes to deal with the problems that showed up when they were assessed as not being able to sit the GSAT (Grade Six Achievement Test),” Adams said.

According to McCausland-Wilson, the NPTAJ has been doing that. She noted that she is well aware of the challenges, including the need for additional resources. The NPTAJ boss said she knows, for example, that computers were promised to the centres from the outset of the programme but that none have been delivered as yet. She is now in correspondence with an official from the programme about when the computers will be provided and is awaiting a promised response.

“So I really have been doing my assessments,” McCausland-Wilson said.

ASTEP, championed by former Prime Minister and Minister of Education Andrew Holness, started last September as part of the solution to drastically reduce the number of children leaving school as illiterates.

Approximately 6,000 students, who completed primary school without achieving mastery in the Grade Four Literacy Test after four opportunities, were selected for the programme.

Programme co-ordinator Novelette Denton Prince — who has said the programme is well on its way to meeting the objectives of significantly reducing the literacy level of students — revealed that of the 6,000 who were targeted, 4,500 are actually enrolled in ASTEP. Another 1,000 were found to be young enough to remain at the primary level. The status of the other 500 or so is unknown.

Meanwhile, McCausland-Wilson has indicated that parents — many of whom did not initially embrace the programme — are warming to it having realised “what the programme was put in place for and realised that it is really impacting our children”.

To those still sceptical, she said: “Give it a chance and see what happens. It’s new, let’s see what happens.”

She added her hope that the new government would provide the programme all it needs to successfully help students in need.