HEAD of the association of private schools, Pastor Wesley Boynes, says Jamaican students have a right to access public resources whether they attend a private or public high school, especially if their parents pay Education Tax.

Pastor Boynes said that Government paying the school fee for a Jamaican student attending a private school should not be confused with government resources being used to finance the running of a private school.

“Every Jamaican student has the right to be supported by the resources of the nation, regardless of which school they are attending,” he said yesterday.

Boynes was responding to criticisms levelled at him and his association for raising the issue in this week’s Sunday’s Observer, that some private high schools face closure this September after the Government decided to end its policy of assigning Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) students to them this year.

The Government’s decision means a loss of over $15 million in school fees from the Ministry of Education for private schools, which had an agreement with the ministry to accept the GSAT students.

Boynes said that, having read the comments of the Jamaica Observer readers, it became obvious to him that some important issues regarding private education in Jamaica needed to be dealt with.

He added that it was obvious that a huge number of Jamaicans were not aware of the critical contribution which private educational institutions have been making to nation-building, noting that misconceptions pertaining to private schools abound, including the assertion that rich people send their children to private schools and only ‘bright students’ attend private schools.

“…On the contrary, a lot of normal, average Jamaican people are sacrificing and doing without the extra wigs and fingernails in order to send their children to a private school setting where they can do better,” Pastor Boynes said.

The view, he said, that only bright students attend private schools was far from the truth. “What a private school presents is an environment where children can explore their potential,” he said.

In addition, he said Government sending students to private schools could not be a waste of taxpayers’ money instead of an investment in social development.

“On the contrary, in the long run, the Government will have to spend much more money trying to police or rehabilitate these young people if they did not have the benefit of attending the private school,” he stated. Boynes highlighted the current situation at the primary level where, for a number of years, prep schools, which are members of JISA, are constantly outperforming the primary schools in the Grade Six Achievement Test.

“This year, private school students have won 21 of 28 available Government scholarships, and have also won all of the top spots in the other categories where they were allowed to be considered,” he said. He pointed out that primary schools only dominated in categories where private school students were not allowed to be considered.

“As far as I am concerned, every single Jamaican student should experience an environment where he/she has the opportunity to be the best that [he/she] can be. Not just a privileged few,” Boynes said.