By Petulia Clarke, Staff Reporter
JACOB ROBINSON'S family started to experience real hardships when his father died when he was four years old. The death created new responsibilities for each member of his family, who had to grow small crops to feed themselves and sell in their community in St. Elizabeth.
The family's circumstances worsened when he was 14 and still a student at the Quick Step Elementary School, when his mother went blind.
But they pulled themselves together, assumed mature responsibilities and ensured their survival.
It was this courage and determination that ensured his success, and led to Jacob Robinson being named the 2002 Governor-General's Achievement Awardee for Manchester.
Born in 1935 at Quick Step, St. Elizabeth, Mr. Robinson was the eighth of ten children born to small farmer Frederick Robinson and homemaker Amanda Robinson.
Fortunately, he was able to remain in school and passed his examinations with the support of a granduncle who lived in the same district. He went on to teach at the Siloah Elementary School and St. Paul's Elementary School and was later admitted to the Mico Teach-ers' College where he graduated as a trained teacher at age 25.
'Teacher Robinson' then returned to teach at St. Paul's, and one year later was appointed principal of the Auchtembeddie All-Age School in Manchester. He taught at two other schools and finally at Harry Watch All-Age School, Manchester, where he was principal for 28 years. He developed the Harry Watch school from an enrolment of some 300 students to over 800.
As Principal, he effectively used the Common Entrance, Technical School Entrance and Grade Nine Achievement Tests as a strategy to get hundreds of students into secondary schools. He encouraged his students to excel in sports as one means of gaining admission to secondary level schools.
An example of this strategy is his focus on the North West Manchester Annual Track and Field Meets, and over a ten-year period his school won the meet for nine straight years. This brought in the talent scouts who awarded many scholarships to his needy students.
The Harry Watch School was destroyed by fire in 1986 and Mr. Robinson, undaunted, mobilised community and corporate help and re-opened under sheds with over 800 students. Then, while the community worked at rebuilding the structure, the school functioned in its temporary makeshift accommodation for three years before the Ministry of Education intervened to put on the roof.
For his achievement and years of service in the teaching profession, Jacob Robinson received from the Jamaica Teachers' Association, the Golden Torch Award as well as the Edith Dalton James Award for outstanding service to education.
His early introduction to farming also served him and his community well as for 27 years he has encouraged coffee production and led Harry Watch community into the North Manchester Coffee Co-operative where he was an executive member for most of those years. He was also instrumental in the formation of the Jamaica Agricultural Society branch in the area, which he also served as an executive member, and for seven years chaired the Mile Gully Zone Advisory Committee of the Rural Agricultural Development Agency (RADA).
Teacher Robinson's other community involvements include his assistance to the National Council on Drug Abuse in the area, and the Mile Gully Police Civic Committee. He is a Justice of the Peace and a Lay Preacher in the Anglican Church.
