As public funding for higher education continues to contract the world over, Heritage Education Funds International (HEFI) is taking steps to continue to bridge the ever-widening gap.

Addressing the HEFI sales team at the company’s 2020 kick-off event at Terra Nova Hotel back in January, principal of Consulting Services at Crichton Mullings Associates Glen Mcleish argued that education is still the great equaliser in both developed and developing countries, which he said underscores the need for programmes like the HEFI Education Savings Plan (ESP) to help families save for their children’s tertiary education.

“Never in our lifetime has the kind of service that you offer been more important to individual families and to our nation,” he said.

As he explained it, the socio-characteristic feature of higher education as a public good and its recognition both as a social investment and as a human right are increasingly being challenged.

“The decline in the public expenditure on higher education is driven by several factors, including widespread economic reform policies and governments increasingly operating within tight fiscal spaces,” he said.

“It is being argued that for developing countries, it is primary education and literacy, not higher education, which matter for reduction of poverty for improvements in income distribution and for social and economic advancement. The debate also rages about the importance of higher education to national development,” McLeish continued.

Pointing to fiscal and monetary improvements in the country, he told the audience, “Jamaica is special for you at this time.”

HEFI Jamaica Agency Director Kameka Clarke agreed, declaring 2020 “the Year of Plenty”.

She referenced the company’s disbursement of over US$50 million in savings and educational assistance payments to Jamaican subscribers and students attending post-secondary institutions since inception, noting that it intends to push those figures even further in this its 25th year of service in Jamaica. Clarke also outlined a host of initiatives and technology-based programmes to help sales representatives more effectively assist Jamaican families to achieve their education savings goals that will ensure a brighter future for their children, better communities, and the nation at large.

Dilan Frost, VP of sales and distribution, and Mauline Segre Lyon, manager of international sales at the Canadian head office, urged sales representatives to continue “inspiring students to realise life’s possibilities by enabling families to maximise their education savings”.

The Heritage International Scholarship Trust Plan is sponsored by The Heritage International Scholarship Trust Foundation, a not-for-profit Canadian corporation recently acquired by Knowledge First Financial Inc, Canada’s largest distributor of registered education savings plans. It is a primarly fixed-income, US-dollar-denominated savings plan which currently has over US$125 million in assets under management and has enrolled over 20,000 students in Jamaica. Beneficiaries attend post-secondary institutions in the Caribbean, United States, Canada, UK and other parts of the world.

The Heritage kick-off event saw awards being presented in a range of categories at the international and local levels, including top sales representatives and top sales managers. Top award winners included:

• Agency Director – Barbara Major & President’s Award – Kameka Clarke

• Associate Agency Director of the Year — Joan Buchanan

• Sales Representative of the Year — Ian Myrie

• Rookie of the Year — Heather Bulgin Williams

• Persistency Award — Carolyn Sang-Downer

• Team Building Award & Personal Persistency — Glena Traille-Nassor