Holness knocks Gov’t over failure to achieve literacy target
OPPOSITION Leader Andrew Holness has expressed disappointment over the Government’s failure to achieve universal literacy in primary schools this year – a target set by the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) administration in 2009.
“Recently, at an awards event, I heard the minister [of education] concede that we will not meet this target. I am certain that maybe in another two to three years the education system will meet that target. But you can’t take it for granted. We can’t look at these very important targets and say we can’t meet it this year, but we will meet it next year,” Holness said.
“I want to use this opportunity to express my great disappointment that we have not achieved our target for universal literacy at the primary level, and I want to urge the Government to redouble their efforts with every single school to ensure that all the schools are achieving the targets set. As a country, as a people, as a society, we cannot take missing the national targets as simply just another failed exercise,” he added.
He lamented that among the “serious implications on the development of the youths” who have repeatedly failed their Grade Four Literacy Test, which was established during his tenure as minister of education, is that “they may become ripe pickings for gang recruitment”.
The opposition leader was speaking at the 17th annual East Central St James Education GSAT Awards ceremony, put on by Member of Parliament Edmund Bartlett at the Montego Bay Convention Centre recently.
Meanwhile, Bartlett announced that $10 million would be spent this year “on a range of educational support and assistance for the children of East Central St James”.
An elated Bartlett noted that nearly 120 GSAT students received grants during Sunday’s function.