Taxi strike, roadblock disrupts St Elizabeth school
MANCHESTER, Jamaica – Exams at the Hampton School in St Elizabeth scheduled for Monday were postponed until Tuesday following a roadblock and taxi strike.
Principal Mahvell Charlton-Brown told Observer Online that some students were affected.
“We would have been impacted in terms of attendance, because our routes, especially the Santa Cruz to Malvern leg of the journey, were blocked in several places. We had a substantial number of students who were still able to come to school, especially those coming from the other end (south), Junction, so we had regular school,” she said.
“We would have been starting internal exams today for the 10th graders. We have just postponed those exams. Students who have not turned up would not be disadvantaged. We have pushed back our internal exams by a day hoping that there will be no more disruptions tomorrow,” she added.
She said while some external exams ended on Friday, sixth-form students are still sitting exams.
“They are still doing CAPE. We had two subjects today and we had to make special plans for some of the students. We had one student who just could not make her way here this morning for her Account Unit One CAPE exam,” she said.
She explained that the student sat the exam at the St Elizabeth Technical High School in Santa Cruz.
“We also had one other student who needed to get here to do her afternoon exam, but there was no centre near her able to facilitate her, so we had to send our driver to pick her up and deliver her here,” she said.
Commuters islandwide were left stranded on Monday following industrial action by several taxi operators.
This follows a meeting last Wednesday between stakeholders and the Island Traffic Authority about potentially reinstating driver’s license suspensions due to accumulated demerit points.
READ: St James taxi operators join islandwide strike over alleged mistreatment
Transport Minister Daryl Vaz has scheduled a meeting for Tuesday to discuss public passenger operators’ issues with the suspension of licenses.
– Kasey Williams
