Education ministry to pay salaries of primary school cooks
ROSE HALL, St James — Primary school cooks, whose salaries were previously paid using contributions from students, will now be paid directly by Government, Education Minister Senator Ruel Reid has said.
“We have now added to our list, 1,007 cooks, [who] have been taken over at a cost of $323.1 million,” Reid said last week Wednesday.
He made the disclosure while speaking on the final day of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) 54th annual conference, held at the Hilton Rose Hall Resort and Spa in St James.
The education minister said in the past, students on the Programme of Advancement through Health and Education (PATH) at some schools were requested to pay $50 towards their lunch.
Reid said he is of the opinion that the ministry is the one that should pay for the core services offered, and as a result, the ministry will start paying the salaries.
“When I became minister, I queried why it is that, particularly, the primary schools were requesting the $50 from the students who are on PATH. And the answer was that because they would have established canteens, over the years, and [needed] to pay the cook; [so] they had to collect a contribution so that they can pay the cook,” Senator Reid shared.
“My own view is that when it comes to the core services of the ministry, that Government are to pay for those services,” Reid said, adding, “So we sat down, Miss (Sonia) Banton and the PS (permanent secretary) (Dean-Roy Bernard), and we say no more. They (students) shouldn’t have to pay and we (the ministry) will pay for the cooks.”
— Anthony Lewis
