MONTEGO BAY, St James — Prime Minister Andrew Holness has hailed the US$1.5-million Early Childhood Development Centre for Innovation, to be constructed in the St James East Central constituency later this year, as a monumental legacy project.

Ground is scheduled to be broken in March for the state-of-the-art early childhood facility, expected to accommodate 100 students on a revolving basis, while construction is projected to be completed in time for the start of the 2023/24 academic year.

The planned multimillion-dollar venture, which will be funded by a number of fund-raising activities, was launched by tourism minister and Member of Parliament Edmund Bartlett during a dinner to commemorate the 25th anniversary of his East Central St James Education Fund at the Half Moon Hotel Conference Centre in Montego Bay last week.

The prime minister was guest speaker at the glitzy fund-raiser.

“When we talk about legacy we want our moment in history to be marked by people, in other words, it is people who will carry the legacy. And investing in education is a very good way of ensuring that your legacy is marked,” Holness said.

“…So as your legacy will be carried…you also want to build infrastructure, because infrastructure is probably the longest lasting legacy. It lives on, beyond people, especially if you build good infrastructure.”

The prime minister, who was impressed by Bartlett’s decision “to build an infant institution and to improve the infrastructure of education in this region”, stressed “that a school is an important infrastructure.”

Minister Faval Williams said the early childhood innovation centre is in sync with the transformation of education currently taking place across the island.

“I am so delighted Minister Bartlett, thank you for this idea. We stand ready to help you to continue to fill out the conceptualisation of it to get to implementation, to expand it all across Jamaica so that we can truly begin to see the transformation in education that we have all been talking about, and that we want to see actualised in Jamaica. This is an excellent start with Mr Bartlett. Thank you. Again, it’s a feather in your cap for continuing to do the scholarships that you do, continuing to ensure that our children make it all the way from early childhood, through to college,” Williams said.

For his part, Bartlett, who for over 25 years has been providing scholarships for students in his constituency from primary to the tertiary level, argued that the early childhood aspect is important.

More than 10,000 primary, secondary and tertiary students from the constituency have benefited from over $60 million in scholarships over the years.

“We feel that something is missing in terms of our own programme, and we have to start at the right place, so we decided that we must make amends. That gave birth to the concept of the Early Childhood Development Centre for Innovation, which will cater to 100 children at a time on a revolving basis,” Bartlett said.

He pointed out the institution will be a Climate Action School (CAS), through the Take Action Global (TAG) network, and also a designated Ministry of Education and Youth Parent Place.

“This [early childhood facility] is the next step in building the human capital in the constituency. We have graduated doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, policemen, and preachers,” he argued.

“Currently, we have students in every high school in the county of Cornwall and other high schools outside of the county. We have students in every teachers’ college in Jamaica, in every university in Jamaica and in universities in the United States, in Canada and in China and Spain.”

Prime Minister Holness emphasised the importance of infrastructure in the educational system.

“… I do also share your perspective that you want the children who reside in your constituency to have the best quality education. Now, we never undervalue the importance of the teacher in education. The most important variable in education is the teacher but you cannot undervalue or underestimate the importance of the infrastructure for education,” Holness charged.

“You can achieve significant improvements in education outcomes by changing the child’s learning environment, improving the classroom. Just the way in which the classroom is built, and organise, can give you a significant improvement in educational outcomes. And so Ed [Bartlett], I don’t want you to build a box, I want you to build something that is ergonomic. Something that is comfortable, something that is well-organised, something that is modern, something that reflects our aspirations for becoming a developed society.”