MAY PEN, Clarendon — In just under two months, Shamaria Graham will begin a new journey in her socio-academic life when she walks through the gates of the University of Technology (UTech) in Papine, St Andrew.

For Graham, 18, it will be another step toward realising her dream of becoming a criminal lawyer.

She can hardly wait to take her seat in one of those air-conditioned lecture theatres and call herself a university woman. “I am really looking forward to it. I am excited,” the Central High School head girl beamed.

As a product of rural Jamaica, she is also relishing the opportunity to see what the big city has to offer, but is determined not to lose sight of the task at hand.

“I have heard that university is so much fun, but at the end of the day, I know what I am going there for,” she said. “It is very hard for a child like me to go to university so I have to go there and make the best use of it.

“I don’t have a mother (she left home when Graham was three); my father has been working very hard to put me through school, so I cannot afford to be (distracted). There is really no room for error,” she told the Jamaica Observer Central.

Graham is one of four Central High students — six in the last four years — who have been accepted into the competitive law programmes at either UTech or the neighbouring University of the West Indies (UWI) for the upcoming academic year.

Simply put, the feat is uncharted waters for the Sevens Road-based school which, up to six years ago, was considered to be an institution suited only for intellectual rejects and troubled youth.

Founded in 1964, Central High quickly took on the negative characteristics of its neighbouring Effortville community and was seen by many as a breeding ground for violence and decadent behaviour, even as it struggled to prove itself on the academic front.

“A lot of parents weren’t interested in sending their children here because the school is located within the vicinity of a volatile community,” said Vinroy Harrison, who has been the school’s principal since 1995. “We had high levels of indiscipline and that was a turn-off for many parents,” he added.

Today, Central High — with a student and teacher population of 2,200 and 110 respectively — has shed most of that negative image and is fast becoming one of the top-performing secondary schools in Clarendon.

Academically, the school has been making huge strides, with many of its students now moving on to respected tertiary level institutions.

The drastic upturn in fortune for Central can be attributed to a number of factors, but Harrison narrowed it down to a dedicated teacher population — a number of whom are past students — and the seeming trending down of violence in the tough Effortville district.

“When I became the principal indiscipline was very high, but with intervention from the staff and management, we were able to bring it down to a manageable level,” he said.

“Indiscipline inhibits learning,” he added, “and that was the major problem here.”

Dean of Discipline Marcia Freemantle agreed. “When I came here in 1994, you could expect at least one fight per day, but it has become far less now, which is ironic, seeing that we had fewer students back then but more disciplinary problems.

“We have more stringent rules now, committed teachers, and I suppose the trending down in violence in the surrounding communities is partly responsible too,” said Freemantle, who became dean of discipline in 2010.

She added: “The improvement in discipline has also impacted positively on the academic performance of our students. Because we have fewer problems with discipline, more learning will take place.”

With a new focus on learning, Harrison quickly realised that there was a need to extend the academic programme at the central Clarendon school. Hence, a sixth form block was added in 2006.

In many ways, the sixth form is now the school’s flagship programme.

“My students started to do very well and I thought that if I can set up a programme to keep them, then it would increase the credibility of the school,” he explained. “It eventually became known to the community and we now have students coming from traditional high schools to be a part of our sixth form programme,” he added

The thing that seems to set Central’s sixth form programme apart from the other schools in the parish is the wide range of vocational and academic subject areas that they offer.

“In September, we will be introducing a language programme, which will include Spanish Literature,” Harrison said.

Academic success is not the only triumph the veteran educator is determined to achieve — extra-curricular activity, namely sports and music is also a priority.

“We had a strong sports programme, but our better athletes are being taken away by the so-called prestigious high schools, so presently we are rebuilding that programme,” he said.

“We are currently erecting a dormitory so that the students who participate in sports can have somewhere to stay. I am really trying to set up a prestigious programme here,” the principal said.

Led by music teacher Ivan Johnson, Central is also in the process of rebuilding the school choir, which will be backed by a live band.

Harrison reckons these improvements will gradually set the school on the path to becoming a well-rounded secondary institution.

“With time, this institution will be a school to be contended with because I see some positive trends being developed here,” the principal said.