KINGSTON Jamaica, April 25th, 2012 -- EDUCATION Minister Rev Ronald Thwaites has warned the country not to expect any increased allocation towards education in the upcoming budget, but instead called on parents and businesses to contribute more of their money and time to improve the quality of the system.
"There is going to be no new money for education available in this budget coming up, or I believe in succeeding budgets," Thwaites said. "We are going to have to do better with what we have."
The minister, who was speaking at the Scotia Group's long service awards luncheon at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston recently, urged parents to make the education of their children their top priority. "Put the contribution towards the child's education before the cigarettes and the liquor, and for the mother's, before the hairpiece and the nails", he stated.
The education minister said an estimated $20 billion is spent annually on remedial education and extra lessons by the state and private individuals. He said much of this could be eliminated with greater emphasis on early childhood education, and lamented what he called a reduced emphasis on education by Jamaicans today, compared with previous generations.
"There are too many who believe that if you can just bust a tune, or if you are a lady that you can just go on the catwalk and take off enough of your clothes at carnival time or whenever, or master the lottery scam; that somehow there are other ways that you can get through in life, so that education become a nice thing to have but is not really essential," said the Rev Thwaites.
This reduced focus on education by the country is reflected in how the national budget is allocated, he said.
Stating that education, health and national security should be the three areas of priority in the budget, Thwaites said other areas should only be funded after those three priority areas are met.
The education minister called for a partnership in the society to fund a quality education system. "Nothing valuable is free. We gentlemen know that love is not free," Thwaites said to chuckles from the audience. "Salvation is not free, it was paid for by precious blood," he added.
The education minister said while the policy of state funding for basic tuition at the secondary level would continue, additional contributions would be necessary from stakeholders "in order that education may have quality attached to it".
And while noting that 100,000 places were needed at the secondary level and 50,000 at the primary level to get rid of the shift system and achieve proper teacher to student ratios, Rev Thwaites called on businesses to partner with government to build the additional school places.
He also called on the long-serving members of Scotiabank to volunteer to serve on school boards.
A total of 41 employees were honoured for 20, 25, 30, 35 or 40 years service to the Scotia Group. The 40-year awardees were Daniel Cunnison, Lois Ho-Sue and Fay Johnson.
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