KINGSTON, Jamaica — Opposition Senator Kamina Johnson Smith has questioned the delay in amending the Education Act to allow teenage mothers to continue their formal education.

Senator Johnson Smith noted that despite the launch by the Minister of Education Ronald Thwaites in November last year of a national policy for the reintegration of school-aged mothers into the formal school system after giving birth, the regulations to the Education Act provisions have not yet been amended to allow them to attend classes during the period of pregnancy.

Johnson Smith raised the question as she responded to a statement in the Senate from Information Minister Senator Sandrea Falconer in commemoration of the of October 11 as International Day of the Girl Child, on Friday.

She also wanted to know if additional centres to be operated by the Women’s Centre of Jamaica Foundation (WCFJ) in Portmore, St Catherine and Santa Cruz, St Elizabeth, which were also announced last year, had been established.

“I would also like to know the number of adolescent mothers reintegrated into the formal education system since last year, and whether the Women’s Centre Foundation has yet been registered as a special education facility: if so, when, and if not, why not?” Johnson Smith asked.

Falconer was unable to provide the answers, but informed the Senate that a review is being done of the programme operated by the WCFJ, and that it would be followed by a survey of all the foundation’s centres.

“The big challenge that we have, as you know at this time, is money. One of the things we are doing is trying to find the money to do the study because we want it to be a study across the island,” she said.

Balford Henry