KINGSTON, Jamaica – At least 50 students from the inner-city will benefit from professional tutoring classes for CSEC math and English, thanks to a new partnership with GetAced Academic Services, and the Grace Kennedy and Digicel Foundations.

Dubbed the GetAced Academic Access Project the initiative is geared toward increasing numeracy and literacy at the high school level.

GetAced is a tutoring company that offers premium online tutoring for students sitting PEP, CSEC and CAPE exams.

“Every student who is sitting CSEC has to do math and has to do English, but even beyond that, last year we would have seen the daunting results. We have seen the pass marks reducing time and time again. This year we want to make an active difference and so we conceptualised this project and we reached out to the relevant persons,” explained Velonique Bowen, executive director of GetAced Academic Services, during the official launch of the project on Saturday in Downtown Kingston.

The classes will feature two topics per day with one two-hour bloc reserved for each topic. That’s a total of four hours with a break in between and a test at the end of each session, which Bowen is hoping to use to track the students’ progress.

Project Officer at Grace and Staff Community Development Foundation, Daniel Jarrett praised the project, which he said aligns with those already being undertaken by the foundation.

“Grace and staff has been targeting students from many different communities, we have a lot of community centres and we are happy to now have GetAced to bring the expert tutoring to us,” said Jarrett.

He said GraceKennedy was concerned about the floundering grades in the two subjects as he highlighted the need for additional support, especially in mathematics.

The program entails more than teaching, though.

“We have our tutors who are bringing the content, breaking it down for them, but beyond that, we’re also helping them with the exam preparation and nervousness,” Bowen, who is a former Miss Jamaica Festival Queen, explained.

In addition to these services, the program is also providing academic kits for the students involved, with the stationary necessary for classes and examinations.

Bowen said the feedback had been overwhelmingly positive from the students who spent Saturday participating in the first round of classes.

“We believe that these students in these areas can really benefit from the level of expertise that we have to offer. We want to know that when those results come out this year, that GetAced has something to do with the increase or the uptick in passes that we need to see for Jamaica,” Bowen declared.

Students participate on the first day of classes guided by tutors from GetAced Academic Services

Students participate on the first day of classes guided by tutors from GetAced Academic Services