Janet Silvera, Senior Tourism Writer

Saxophonist Arturo Tappin hits the right note with Rose Hall Development's Sharon Singh just before giving a stellar performance at the Palmyra Foundation fund-raiser. - Photo by Janet Silvera

WESTERN BUREAU:

Prime Minister Bruce Golding says the Government is in preliminary talks with three major international financial institutions to fund the $219 billion that the Task Force Report on Education says the country needs to advance educational standards.

The task force, headed by Dr. Rae Davis, estimated in 2004 that the country would have to expend an additional $22 billion annually to transform the education system by 2015.

To secure the level of expenditure, Prime Minister Golding said discussions were now being carried out with the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).

Addressing supporters of The Palmyra Foundation (TPF) $10,000-per-person fundraiser at the Shoppes at Rose Hall in Montego Bay on Saturday night, he cited the alarming statistics and the dismal results in English and mathematics in the island's schools.

"Less than 30 per cent are passing English and less than 20 per cent are passing maths, the two most important subjects," he revealed, adding that there were serious systemic deficiencies.

Conscious of the enormous challenge to secure funding, the Prime Minister said it may be necessary to segment the needs and position early childhood education as a model. Early childhood education is the focus of The Palmyra Foundation, which has this year spent $4.4 million on the purchase of 15,000 textbooks that were disbursed to 2,000 basic and infant school children in the parish of St. James.

Unmarketable citizens

Surveys have shown that at least 50 per cent of the students in grade four are illiterate. "This ultimately leads to having an extraordinarily large segment of the population without a marketable skill," Kathy Constanzo, Palmyra Foundation's chairman, told the gathering.

She also said the foundation intends to expand their mission beyond the schoolchildren of St. James to all public-school students in Jamaica. To that end, next year's goal will be to move from 15,000 books to 100,000 books, and their five-year goal to one million books."

Constanzo added that once this had been achieved, the aim was to expand the foundation's mission of supplying textbooks to include uniforms, school lunches, among other ventures.

janet.silvera@gleanerjm.com