PRIMARY and secondary students islandwide can now access educational content and support relating to examinations such as Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT), Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE), at their fingertips via LearningHub.Online.

The educational platform will be offered only to Digicel customers courtesy of a partnership between the telecommunications giant and GoGSAT.

The website, which aims to assist students in passing their exam at their first attempt, will also enable students in accessing reading materials, quizzes, mock exams and tutorials.

Students will be able to access all reading materials for the different subjects for free, in the basic plans, but the other services, which will be rolled out shortly, will attract a cost.

State Minister in the Ministry of Education Floyd Green, speaking at Wednesday’s launch at Jessie Ripoll Primary in Kingston, described the initiative as revolutionary, while noting that it will help to enhance the work of the nation’s teachers.

In addition, Green said the initiative provides an avenue for Jamaica to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of eradicating poverty by having universal access to primary education, as it will remove some of the barriers to education.

“We have said as a Government we believe in removing cost from our education system but we can’t do it alone. It is impossible with all our good intentions, but we don’t want these costs to be a barrier to our children from attaining the transformative education that they need.

“We know it is the only real way to move us from poverty to prosperity and that is how the learning hub fits perfectly into the drive of our ministry and the drive of this administration, as what it does is remove the barriers to access of so many critical elements in our educational system. Accessing things that people would normally have to pay for — books, and lessons. This is revolutionary,” he said.

The state minister commended both entities for the initiative, while thanking Digicel for its continuous contribution to the education sector. He said the company has set a trend in Corporate Jamaica on how to contribute effectively to education.

According to Dr Shalette East, chief executive officer and founder of GoGSAT and creator of LearningHub.Online, the aim of the website is to ensure that all Jamaicans have access to the highest quality education.

“Digicel’s dedication to making a difference made it the perfect partner for this programme. We have a simple shared aim of ensuring that everybody can benefit from the highest quality of education whoever and wherever they are. This is going to be a game changer in the education field,” she said.

Meanwhile, Lisa Lewis, group projects director for Digicel, said that the website will not only benefit students, but anyone who has the desire to learn

“LearningHub.Online is a website where students, teachers, parents, anybody who is trying to learn within the Jamaican curriculum and subject syllabus can go and find content for the subjects that they are trying to study, whether at GSAT level or CXC,” said Lewis.

She said the content, which will be online will start from grade four up to 13, but other grades will be launched shortly.

“Digicel has been interested in revolutionising education for many many years from the foundation stage. From 2006 we did a partnership with the Ministry of Education to begin transformation in education and this is just a continuation and we’re actually going to try and roll this out across the region,” Lewis said.

Interested individuals can use their Digicel number to create an account to access the site and will be able to earn rewards points for the amount of time spent reading “learning” content, and test mock exam scores and performance improvement. The points can be redeemed for prizes like Digicel credit and other goodies.