PRIME Minister Andrew Holness has insisted that privately-run early childhood institutions, which receive support from Government, should not charge fees.

He said schools must adhere to the policies and guidelines laid down by the Ministry of Education for public institutions.

“I have noticed from time to time that principals and school leaders, in a genuine attempt to try to survive, take matters into their own hands because there is a sense that the ministry doesn’t respond, so in trying to advance the goodwill of their schools, they oftentimes engage in policies that are not always the policy of the Ministry of Education,” he said.

Holness was giving the main address at the official handing over of the Jamaica-China Goodwill Infant School at 155 Olympic Way in St Andrew West Central, yesterday.

He said free pre-primary education is a constitutional right, which administrators of some community-based pre-primary schools have been guilty of breaching.

Holness pointed out that the Government is now insisting that institutions, which receive its support from public funds, must comply with the policy of free early childhood education.

He explained that the Government has found that some community-based schools access public resources, sometimes including the construction or reconstruction of buildings, then charge parents fees.

“I know the struggles of many parents in communities like these to send their children to school, and I know it from the other side as well because right in this constituency there are basic schools that are struggling, teachers haven’t been paid for weeks and months, but they still continue, but that is not a sustainable way of delivering the constitutionally guaranteed right,” he stated.

“The reason why I insisted on putting the resources into building these schools at the time when we were conceiving it, is that there was some confusion as to how we would attain this now constitutionally guaranteed right to free early childhood education…so this school must not charge any fee, as an infant school. I want to make that absolutely clear,” he told stakeholders and constituents.

The Chinese also built another infant school at Morant Estate in St Thomas.

— Alphea Saunders