GREEN ISLAND, Hanover — Education Minister Dr Dana Morris Dixon has provided more details about a $400-million push to have at least one lab in each of the country’s technical high schools, starting this year.

“I have seen… like when you go into the woodwork shops and you see the equipment that looks like equipment from maybe the 1950s, it is so obsolete. A lot of times they don’t work and you see them stocked in a corner or a room. That is not preparing our children for the world of the future. And so, that is very important for us that we do all of these TVET (technical and vocational education and training) labs,” stated Morris Dixon.

She was addressing the final day of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association’s (JTA) 61st Annual Conference held at Princess Grand Jamaica Hotel in Green Island, Hanover on Wednesday.

According to the minister, schools that will benefit from the initiative this year include Dunoon Park Technical High School in Kingston, which will be receiving a robotics lab; St Andrew Technical, which will be receiving a renewable energy lab; Kingston Technical, which will be getting a virtual welding lab; an electrical engineering lab for St Thomas Technical; a robotics and industrial controls lab, which falls in the area of mechatronics, for St Mary Technical; Marcus Garvey Technical, which will be receiving a renewable energy lab; Knockalva Technical in Hanover, which will have a robotics lab; and an optoelectronics lab for Herbert Morrison in St James.

In addition, Holmwood Technical High School in Manchester will have a renewable energy lab; St Elizabeth Technical will be getting a robotics and mechatronics lab; Jose Marti Technical in St Catherine will get a mechanic engineering lab; there will be a digital construction lab and mechanical engineer lab for Dinthill Technical in St Catherine; a virtual welding lab for Vere Technical in Kingston; while Frome Technical in Westmoreland will get a robotics lab; and Stony Hill Technical will be getting a digital construction lab.

“We are not thinking small. And if you can see, these labs that we are doing are going to be state-of-the-art. This is us saying to our children that you deserve the best. What they have in North America and Europe schools and technical schools is what we are working to bring here,” stated Morris Dixon, who assured that non-technical high schools will also benefit from similar labs in the future.

The education minister also told the gathering of educators that the procurement process is currently in motion to purchase equipment for all currently under-resourced high school science labs.

“We did an audit of all science labs because we felt that this was absolutely important and we have a procurement [process] that is ongoing where we are buying equipment for all physics, chemistry and biology labs across the board. And so, all over schools will get the equipment that they need,” stated Morris Dixon.

The minister pointed to what she saw during her islandwide tour of schools since she was appointed to in 2024.

“This is a big thing. We said we are preparing our children for a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) future. I have been in so many labs, the biology labs, the physics labs, the chemistry labs and nothing not in there! All I see are some benches and some tables. Just the basic things that you would use,” said Morris Dixon.

“When I saw the biology results for CSEC, I was very happy. But then I said, you know what, that means that we have miracle workers in our schools because if you can produce those results with nothing in the labs, you are miracle workers. But we can’t stop there and call you miracle workers. We need to give you the resources,” she added.