Jamaicans should appreciate that prior to political independence in 1962 British colonial authorities, at best, had only limited interest in the education of the descendants of slaves.

In large measure, it was the churches and charities of various sorts which built schools.

A chronic shortage of classroom space for the children of the poorest among us, even as demand grew, is the reason the Michael Manley-led People’s National Party (PNP) Government of the 1970s introduced the much-criticised shift system.

Back then, the great majority of our children were denied a high school education because there was no space for them. The plan was for classrooms to be built at a rapid rate across the country to facilitate the phasing out of the shifts, contemptuously dismissed by the folk culture as ‘half-day school’.

That 50 years later there are still 27 schools on shift represents a monumental long-standing failure of government policy and political will.

Back then, as now, myriad weaknesses — such as limited, crammed contact time between students and teachers, as well as security issues with children leaving home even before dawn and returning home late at night — pointed to the need for urgent action.

Economic crises and changing priorities as governments alternated meant classroom construction and, by extension, our children, kept being pushed to the back burner.

Elected politicians alone shouldn’t be blamed. They typically respond to public pressure. And we are all at fault for not insisting on construction of the required classrooms.

Against that backdrop, the leadership of Bellefield High School, parents, and that wider school community deserve the highest praise for the recent completion of an eight-classroom block as well as offices and a restroom.

We are told that the self-help initiative cost $75 million with funds raised with the help of parents and connected stakeholders.

The project was one more step in the push to remove the school — located in Bellefield, a few miles north-east of Mandeville — from the two-shift system.

The recent formal opening culminated a process of several years with the first four classrooms becoming operational in 2022.

Last week, Ms Susan Nelson Smith, regional director at the Ministry of Education’s Region Five (Manchester and St Elizabeth), highlighted the respect due to those responsible.

“…I want to acknowledge the leadership of this institution… We applaud schools like Bellefield High who will take the initiative based on the needs of the institution to ensure the school continues on a path of success,” Ms Nelson Smith said.

She had special praise for Mr Paul Grant, principal of Bellefield High, for his stewardship of what is one of the many significantly under-resourced, non-traditional schools, dotted across Jamaica.

Yet, even as we admire Mr Grant and his team for their drive to achieve “whole day” status at Bellefield High, we recognise the betrayal of so many of our children by Jamaicans and our leaders.

We are now hearing that classroom space will be completed by Government for the shifting system to be phased out within three years in Jamaica.

All of us, including news media, the Jamaica Teachers’ Association, other lobby groups in the education sector, so-called civil society, and opinion leaders generally, should get off our haunches and make sure it happens.