KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) — Acting Commissioner of Police, Novelette Grant, is encouraging employers to get involved in schools in order to instil in students at an early age, the values that are needed for the workforce and the wider society.

“You have something to offer to these young people who are in our schools. Be a key partner in building safe schools… spaces where we can start to develop the citizens that we want to employ as after all, you need the people that are coming out of the schools to staff your organisations,” she said.

Grant was addressing the launch of the Jamaica Employers’ Federation’s (JEF’s) 35th annual business and workplace convention and expo 2017, at the Terra Nova Hotel in St Andrew on Thursday.

She said there is need to strengthen the value system in the society as part of the solution to crime and violence. 

Grant noted that the police have gone into schools with summer programmes, which have resulted in youths making a positive transformation.

“We need to go back and look at how …we can influence the kind of education that our youths are receiving. Education is more than academics, it is about preparing them to become wholesome human beings, who can make positive contributions and they are going to do that based on the values that they develop over time,” she said.

The acting commissioner, in the meantime, pointed to the need for greater coordination of crime fighting interventions being carried out by various groups at the community level.

She noted that while a lot of work is being done, it is not within a framework “that we can make the kind of impact that we need to make.” 

“This is so because so many different groups or persons enter the communities and there is no cohesion, coherence and coordination about what we need to do. In an environment of scarcity, that makes little or no sense and that is why we can’t move ahead as fast as we can with the transformation that we need for our communities,” Grant argued.

She noted also that community members must be given adequate room to play a part in the crime solution.

The JEF’s 35th annual business and workplace convention and expo will be held at the Montego Bay Convention Centre from May 4-6,  under the theme: ‘People, Purpose, Growth: The Pathway to Prosperity’. 

The JEF is targeting 400 people to attend the forum, up from 300 in 2016.