AMIDST all the speeches delivered by adults, Allman Town Primary School Grade 5 student Mackeda Henry best summed up the importance of the JA BizTown project to children in her age group.

It is, she said, “the perfect bridge that I need [to] help me appreciate what I am taught every day, and [to] be able to play a more active and responsible role in my household, my family, my community, and my nation”.

“I believe I speak on behalf of all the students in my age group when I say that Ja BizTown is just what we need to help assure us of a brighter future,” she said to nods of approval and admiring smiles.

“In school I’ve been learning, among other things, how to solve mathematical problems, how to structure my sentences properly and tell stories, how the water cycle works, and interesting facts about the parishes in our beautiful nation.

“But, to be honest, I have not been able to appreciate the relevance of it, nor have I been fully able to understand how my knowledge will be useful in the future,” she said.

That captured fully the purpose of the Junior Achievement (JA) BizTown’s experimental learning programme for grades five and six students that was officially opened on Tuesday at the Ministry of Education’s Caenwood Centre in Kingston.

Essentially, JA BizTown is a simulated business district where up to 100 students per day will be given the responsibility of running the companies sited there.

Shop space in the town has so far been rented by eight companies — Caribbean Broilers, First Global Bank, Texaco, Guardsman Group, Jamaica Public Service, Jamaica Yellow Pages, Spanish Court Hotel, and Ernst & Young.

According to Junior Achievement Jamaica (JAJ) President Alphie Mullings-Aiken, the programme comprises two components. The first is a four-week instructional module under which students will be taught how an economy operates, the importance of staying in school and getting a career, and how to conduct everyday transactions. During that in-class engagement, they will be required to apply for a job at BizTown, which is the first of its kind outside the United States.

The second component comprises a one-day visit to BizTown where they will fill the posts for which they have applied and run the businesses there.

“This is where our students will bring what they have been learning to life,” Mullings-Aiken was quoted in a JAJ news release.

“Grade 5 and some Grade 6 classes will take turns to have a co-ordinated field trip to JA BizTown where they will be engaging in commerce, getting paid, writing cheques, [and] purchasing products and services,” she added.

Mackeda, in her address, said she was “already excited at the prospect of working and doing transactions in the businesses that have already taken a spot at JA BizTown”.

“This experience will help thousands of my peers each year to make more informed choices about their future,” she said.

“Ladies and gentlemen, as a budding meteorologist, JA BizTown will help me understand the type of mindsets and skills I need to develop as I prepare to be on top of my game, not only here in Jamaica, but all across the world.

“My peers and I are eager to learn, explore and discover,” she told guests at the mid-morning launch.

She thanked the Rotary Club of Kingston, which spearheaded the project, the education ministry, the United States Agency for International Development, as well as the private sector companies and others who helped to build and sponsor BizTown, which she described as a “wonderful programme” that will allow her and other students across Jamaica to learn in a “one-of-a-kind way”.

Julian Robinson, the state minister for science, technology and energy, described the project as “a classic example of what nation-building should be”.

“You have the volunteer effort of the Rotary, you have the Government through the Ministry of Education, you have Jamaica Junior Achievement, you have our international development partners who have all come together and decided that this project would be successful,” said Robinson in whose St Andrew South Eastern constituency the project is located.

“Our private sector partners, in very challenging economic circumstances, have put their money where their mouth is, and this has proven to me that once you have a good concept and a good project, and dynamic leadership as exhibited by Allison [Peart] we can actually accomplish anything that we set our minds to,” he said.

“Our education system gears us primarily to producing students who will go into a workforce seeking a job. Our unemployment, and in particular youth unemployment is extremely high, so any programme which introduces entrepreneurship, which facilitates innovation, which allows our students to develop and create their own opportunities is more than timely,” Robinson said.

“At the ministry that I’m a part of we believe that innovation and entrepreneurship will help us to get our of out economic challenges,” he added.

Rotary Club of Kingston Immediate Past President Allison Peart, who was the engine driving the initiative, thanked all the companies and individuals who both sponsored and worked on the project to make it a reality.

The project, she said, is expected to impact more than 40,000 students across the island in the first five years.

The first batch of students, JAJ said, is expected to visit BizTown in November this year.