Top GSAT award winners at Alpart Community Council & Rusal Alpart JamaicaBack-to-School ceremony share a moment with Julian Keane (back row left)public relations officer, Rusal Alpart Jamaica; Camilla Blake (back row, centre),project administrator, Alpart Community Council and Bevon Shirley (back row,right), commercial director, Rusal Alpart.
Peart wants greater gov’t control of auxiliary fees
SANTA CRUZ, St Elizabeth — Member of Parliament for South Manchester is calling on the Government to exercise control in the context of what he says is the “unfair” escalation of “auxiliary fees and other fees” being implemented by high schools.
“We want an audit of this thing and we need more control,” Peart told a high school entrance, GSAT awards ceremony hosted by the Alpart Community Council and Rusal Alpart Jamaica at the Alpart Sports Club recently.
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In a follow-up telephone interview with the Jamaica Observer, Peart said he understood that schools were seriously underfunded and needed to raise money. However, he argued that there needed to be some “control” by Government, given the severe economic pressure facing parents.
Citing South Manchester, where subsistence farming is the main source of livelihood and severe drought has caused economic devastation, Peart said the burden on parents who were being called on to pay thousands of dollars was “astronomical” and unbearable.
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He told the Alpart Awards ceremony that as MP he had received 1,280 requests to help children with back-to-school expenses.
“I have to be taking off names and every name that come off that list pain me, because it’s not that I think they can afford it, but because I can’t help,” said Peart.
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He lamented that registration packages at high schools were upwards of $2,000. “Then you have auxiliary fees you have to pay, then you have other fees you have to pay,” he said.
Peart argued that what he considered to be excessive fees weakened the capacity of many parents to send their children to school on a daily basis because there wasn’t money to meet day-to-day expenses.
“Regardless of how bright a student maybe, if they miss two days a week out of school, they eventually going to fall back and back and back and can’t make progress,” the blunt-talking MP, who is also Speaker of the House of Representatives, said.
The annual awards hosted by the Alpart Community Council, its business arm Essex Valley Community & Associates and Rusal Alpart Jamaica provided cash benefits for 1,020 students from 45 communities in the mining areas of St Elizabeth and Manchester. Organisers said the ages of beneficiaries ranged from basic school level to tertiary. They said $4.5 million was spent on the benefits package.
South Manchester Member ofParliament Michael Peart addressingthe recent GSAT awards ceremony atthe Alpart Sports Club.
