MILE GULLY, Manchester — Minister of Finance Dr Peter Phillips has reignited hope for the construction of a new building to house Mile Gully High School, after years of lobbying and planning.

At the school’s recent graduation ceremony Phillips said he was prepared to give a “favourable” response to Minister of Education Ronald Thwaites on the subject.

“I cannot intrude on any announcement that the minister of education might want to make, but I can say this: if the minister of education were to talk to the minister of finance about the new Mile Gully school, he would get a favourable response,” the finance minister said.

He said the new building has been on the drawing board for a long time, with land having been identified and site preparation having begun.

“…It is full time now that the potential for excellence that has been identified here in the children of North West Manchester…be given full scope by giving them the proper facilities of a proper high school,” Phillips added.

Ulit Brackett, who is departing Mile Gully High after 24 years as principal, told the Jamaica Observer Central that discussions for a new school building started over six years ago.

Phillips, meanwhile, said that within the next 10-12 years there should be less disparity in educational attainment in schools across Jamaica through the efforts of the Government and private sector programmes such as the Mutual Building Societies Foundation Centres of Excellence.

The initiative is a five-year programme funded by the Jamaica National and Victoria Mutual building societies. It is designed to improve education delivery and the performance of administrators, educators and students at six rural, non-traditional high schools across the island, including Mile Gully High.

The other schools are McGrath in St Catherine, Godfrey Stewart in Westmoreland, Green Pond in St James, Seaforth in St Thomas, and Porus and Mile Gully in Manchester.

Phillips, whose son Mikael is Member of Parliament for NW Manchester, said that the “biggest single commitment in the Budget, after debt service, is education”. He said the figure would be supplemented by public/private partnerships to the tune of $76 billion, and that the framework for the agreement will be taken to Cabinet in a policy document within weeks.

“Even though we have a major obligation to settle our debt, we don’t believe we should allow the debt to set back progress in education and other areas of social and economic development. We believe that education should involve a partnership between the private sector, the communities, the Government, [and] the children because education, ultimately, is a national responsibility. We expect on the basis of public/private partnerships to be able to finance construction of additional high schools and other educational institutions,” he said.

He urged the graduates with an interest in entrepreneurship to educate themselves about their businesses of interest and also about the financing available for start-ups.

“There is a whole new world in Information Technology that is out there. Many people will start their own businesses whether in IT, developing apps (computer applications) as they call them, or in some other business venture.

“For that reason…the Government has provided more than $1.5 billion through the Development Bank of Jamaica for the lending to micro- small- and medium-size enterprises. We have also provided an additional…. $396 million that will be given for capacity building to go to particularly micro-enterprises. You have learnt how to study while here at school. Don’t forget those skills. They will serve you well into the future,” Phillips told the graduating class.

The schools in the Centres of Excellence programme are said to have benefited from $100 million in technical assistance and equipment.