KINGSTON, Jamaica — The governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) has made their case on how they will assist parents who are struggling economically with expenses, including those associated with back-to-school.

The issue was raised by a social media user and posed as a question to team JLP for their response, and later rebutted by team PNP during the election debate on the economy Tuesday night.

Responding on behalf of the JLP, Minister of Education, Skills, Youth and Information, Dr Dana Morris Dixon was empathetic towards parents who were currently facing several burdens.

On that score, she said the JLP Government has focused on how it can get children to school.

“Let me give you some realities from going around to our schools, especially in rural areas. When I go to school on a Friday, classes are sometimes half empty, and when you ask our teachers why, they say money ran out. What keeps them (the children) at home? High transportation costs and also the high cost of lunch,” Morris Dixon explained.

Against that background, she said the JLP decided to focus on these areas through the Rural School Bus System.

“I had one mother in St Thomas say to me, it cost her $1,200 a day to send one of her children to school, and that it is so expensive that she ends up having to choose which one goes to school sometimes. We cannot have a country like that,” the minister argued.

She said the ministry has expanded meals to five days a week for those on the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH) who need it the most, with moves now afoot to provide breakfast to students in the public schools that are the most underperformed.

Meanwhile, the PNP’s Peter Bunting labeled the JLP’s Rural School Bus System as a “political gimmick”.

“We cannot be buying new trucks to transport garbage, and we’re buying 15-year-old buses to transport our most precious cargo — our children. That was just an opportunity for somebody to eat a food,” Bunting alleged.

In deep rural communities, he said the country cannot afford parallel transportation systems — a school bus and a system for adults.

“So what we (the PNP) have proposed is a subsidy of $10,000 per month per child for those parents who need it, for those children who are unable to attend school five days a week,” he informed.

Turning to meals for needy children, Bunting said the PNP is proposing a hot meal everyday for them.