Petrina Francis, Education Reporter
REID
AFTER GIVING more than 40 years of dedicated service to education, Radley Reid, principal of Campion College, will demit office at the end of December.
Mr. Reid has served in several educational institutions, including his alma mater, Clarendon College, and joined Campion College in 1973, where he spent the last five years as principal .
"Once you have reached a point where you have accomplished your task, you need to give up at some point, (and) have somebody take over where you have reached," Mr. Reid said.
Campion College is well known for producing top students, but Mr. Reid said this was not always the case. He said the school has grown tremendously over the years.
The outgoing principal attributed the school's success to excellent management of resources, dedicated teachers, committed parents and good students.
"Since we became grant-aided we have been getting good students and we make something of them," he said with pride. "Besides being good students, they are highly motivated, competitive and success to them is very important."
ACHIEVEMENTS
Some of his achievements as principal include the expansion of the sixth-form block, which enabled the school to accommodate more students who qualified for upper school, two new computer labs, a computer room in the library, a new wing to the administrative block and a fully secured school with fences.
The veteran educator said he was disappointed that he was not able to see his school win some of the broad-based sports such as football, netball and track. He said Campion had always been excelling in badminton, water polo and cricket.
Asked for his views on the education system in Jamaica, the 61-year-old said he gets very annoyed when people say there is nothing happening in education.
"We have very much more to do, but progress is being made," he said. "All we really need to do is accelerate what we are doing so that progress will become a reality in a much shorter time."
Mr. Reid said his first and true love is teaching and he will be going back to the classroom to help schools improve the quality and delivery of mathematics and science.
"I hope to spend my days not as a fossil but making my life useful in education," he concluded.
