AS part of its 295th anniversary celebrations, marked by a road march around National Heroes’ Park on Tuesday, the Wolmer’s Group of Schools announced plans to enhance the technological facilities in group as they look towards the future.

Established in 1729 by founder and former goldsmith John Wolmer, the educational institution, comprising Wolmer’s Boys and Girls, is renowned as the oldest high school in the English-speaking Caribbean. It is also distinguished as the only school to have received a proclamation from Governor General Sir Patrick Allen in 2019, designating May 21 as Wolmer’s Day.

As students, teachers and alumni donned their maroon and gold colours and chanted the schools’ motto around National Heroes’ Park, patrons remained in a celebratory mood despite the persistent heat, frequently proclaiming Wolmer’s as the best all-round school in Jamaica.

Chairman of the Wolmer’s joint board of management Courtney Wynter announced during a thanksgiving ceremony plans to improve facilities as the group approaches its 300-year milestone.

“Given the global trends for certain skills brought on by the rapid change of technology, the advent of artificial intelligence as a mainstay in our daily lives, and the investment in the orange economy, Wolmer’s must now pivot to the next 50 years and prepare its young men and women to meet those demands,” he said.

“This is why within the next couple of months, the Wolmer’s Trust will launch the Wolmer’s 300 Technology and Multimedia Expansion Programme to add a minimum of 16 rooms, including additional classrooms on the sixth form block, a lecture hall, additional ICT [information and communication technology] labs, a studio and a multimedia STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) centre, all to be outfitted with state of the art learning tools to accommodate an academy,” he announced.

He said these advancements will be the largest single investment in the schools’ infrastructure development. He also asserted that these improvements will elevate Wolmer’s above any other secondary school in the Caribbean.

Wynter, who described Wolmer’s as the “crème de la crème” among high schools in Jamaica due to its accomplishments, noted that the schools’ resilient spirit has been the key driving force behind their success.

“Our beloved school [group] is rich in history and has built resilience. We have survived earthquakes, storms, fires and two of the worst pandemics in our history… Over the last 295 years our beloved school [group] has faced and overcome many challenges. Today, like other educational institutions, we face new challenges with compliance issues, teacher migration and retention, resource constraints and the fast pace of technology, to name a few. The two consistent survival factors, however, are [our] pure culture of resilience and our culture of excellence.”

He added: “Despite our many challenges, the state of the Wolmer’s Group of Schools, ladies and gentlemen, is strong. This is evident with the prep school achieving an average of 85 per cent of their first choice in the PEP examination, while both secondary schools consistently attain top 10 status in CSEC and CAPE examinations while excelling in many extra-curriculum and sporting activities.“