Patterson THE MINISTRY of Education and Culture has welcomed the Government's decision to focus national activities for Labour Day 2001 on the building and upgrading of basic schools islandwide.
Euvina Haseley Allen, Assistant Chief Education Officer for the Early Childhood Unit, told JIS News that the upgrading of the infrastructure of basic schools would assist the Ministry with its mandate to improve early childhood education.
"In 1995, the Ministry of Education commissioned an evaluation of the early childhood programme and the outcome highlighted the areas that needed special attention, and coming out of that we knew that the physical facilities needed to be upgraded. Labour Day fits into the plan to improve the physical facilities," she explained.
Last month at the launch of Labour Day 2001 (May 23), Prime Minister P.J. Patterson announced that activities for the day would centre around improving basic schools as part of the Government's objective to afford every eligible child a place in one of these institutions by 2004.
"I have set a target that by the year 2004 we must have 100 per cent enrolment at the early childhood level, and we must have full literacy throughout the length and breath of Jamaica," the Prime Minister had said.
In order to facilitate this, the Government intends to establish a first rate basic school in every community within the next three years. Consequently, it has been proposed that national activities for Labour Day 2002 will also focus on basic schools.
Mrs. Haseley Allen described the government's plan as a move in "the right direction, as early childhood schooling has the potential to influence a child's life-long education."
"When you think about children acquiring the basic skills for formal learning, if it is not set right at the basic school level, then it will continue not being right throughout the education system. So it's very important that we pay attention to children in the basic schools," she said.
She also emphasised that the physical environment of the schools should be conducive to learning. "Children must be comfortable in whatever setting they learn in, and if they are going to spend most of their time in basic schools, then everything there must be right for them," she said.
Over the years, basic schools have received help from private persons, service clubs, businesses and other interests within the communities and parishes in which they are located.
The National Labour Day initiative was last focused on basic schools in May 1996, when schools were upgraded under the theme, "Basic Schools Building Better Values, "which called for "everyone in the community (to) pool their efforts to provide amenities that enhance the educational opportunities for our children, especially our basic school children."
