Kingston Bookshop to award $2m scholarship to teacher
Published:Wednesday | May 1, 2024 | 12:10 AMAsha Wilks/Gleaner Writer
As part of its 50th anniversary celebration, Kingston Bookshop (KB) Limited has announced that it will provide a $2 million scholarship to an outstanding teacher.
Director of strategy and innovation at KB, Shauna Fuller Clarke, said at the company-hosted annual teachers’ luncheon on Tuesday at the Terra Nova All-Suite Hotel in St Andrew that the scholarship will fund an advanced programme at one of the island’s top teachers’ colleges.
She continued by saying that this action demonstrated KB’s dedication to lifelong learning and the critical role that education plays in shaping one’s future.
The theme for the anniversary celebration is ‘Celebrating our story, Inspiring yours’.
Fuller Clarke continued that KB’s connection to education runs “deep”, especially so as the company’s chief executive officer, Steadman Fuller, began his career as a teacher, which resulted in a “wonderful partnership with the teaching community over the years”.
She told The Gleaner that as some of the company’s employees were both current and former teachers, they were particularly aware of how challenging it is to seek further education.
She stressed the company’s delight to assist its educators, adding, “We know the struggle is real when it comes on to education, even if you’re not a teacher, so, we’re saying, ‘you do a lot, so let’s do this for you’.”
In his remarks, Leighton Johnson, president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), praised the educators for their unwavering commitment and fortitude in a field that requires flexibility and patience to perform duties efficiently.
He added that the teaching profession also demanded for educators to continuously update their teaching methods to meet their pupils’ ever-evolving needs and pushed them to face and overcome all challenges and obstacles that may arise – both within and outside the classroom.
In spite of this, Johnson stated that educators, who continue to display their extraordinary abilities to “go above and beyond the call of duty”, have helped to foster an environment where learning flourishes, and where knowledge, skills and values are obtained.