Scholarships take on new meaning for many J’cans

In a year of unprecedented events, including a one-in-a-101-year coronavirus pandemic that has shuttered major industries and crippled economies around the world, some parents and students have attached greater meaning to receiving scholarships to pursue an education.

For Marshalee Powell, a single mother who lost her job in the tourism sector in March, as COVID-19 literally stopped global travel and starved the local tourism industry, her daughter’s award of a scholarship by the JN Foundation means much more now than it perhaps would have prior to the COVID-19 outbreak.

There has been an 87.5 per cent decline in tourism since the pandemic, according to the Planning Institute of Jamaica, and although an opening of the borders in July resulted in some relief for hotels, the recent rise in COVID-19 cases and deaths in Jamaica have triggered trip cancellations.

“Getting this scholarship is a big deal. I’m overjoyed,” remarked Powell. She said she was optimistic that her daughter would have been awarded the scholarship due to her consistently high academic performance.

Her 11-year-old, Arriana Hewitt, a former student of Black River Primary and Infant School in St Elizabeth, achieved a placement score of 345 in the Primary Exit Profile (PEP) exams to earn a place at Hampton School, also in the parish. She is equally overjoyed about the scholarship award and vowed to continue her high academic performance at her new school.

The scholarship award was similarly meaningful for another parent, Shaine Buchanan. She, too, was laid off from her job in the hotel industry in March. She resumed work at the end of July, but with reduced pay.

“I’m very delighted,” she exclaimed. “With everything which has happened since COVID-19, the scholarship will help to finance my son when he returns to school in October. I was wondering how I was going to pay his tuition. However, the Lord heard my prayers,” she related.

Her 12-year-old son, Jonathan Buchanan, has been a consistent saver over the years, a virtue she strived to inculcate in him early.

BELIEVES IN BEING WEALTHY

“He believes in being wealthy, therefore he is building wealth from now,” she pointed out about her son, who received a JN Bank Schools’ Savers Programme Scholarship.

Johnathan, who topped his class every year at George Headley Primary in Kingston, concurred.

“You don’t know what will happen in the future, therefore you need to save from now,” he asserted, adding that he hopes to purchase a house when he becomes an adult. Jonathan, who achieved a placement score of 337.9, will be attending Campion College when school reopens.

Shanna Kaye Wright Vaughn, youth banking officer with oversight of the JN Schools’ Savers Programme at JN Bank, commended Jonathan and other JN Foundation Scholarship recipients for the serious approach taken towards savings. It will help them to establish a solid financial future when they become adults, she said.

Thirty-five students have been awarded five-year scholarships by the JN Foundation, in recognition of their outstanding performance in this year’s PEP assessment. The cohort consists of one recipient from each parish and county, while 18 are children of employees of The Jamaica National Group.

At the same time, more than 100 other students, who are at various stages in their five-year scholarship award, will have their scholarship renewed for the new school year.

In addition to the PEP scholarship awards this year, 16 students at the tertiary level, attending The University of the West Indies, the University of Technology, Jamaica, the Northern Caribbean University, and the University College of the Commonwealth (UCC), will receive financial assistance to pursue their studies.