Early childhood educators receive grants from $10m fund for tertiary studies

Nineteen early childhood educators in the Southeast region of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), who are beneficiaries of the multimillion-dollar grant funding programme to pursue tertiary education, were last week presented with cash.

They are among the first recipients of the $10 million grant and will each receive a total of $166, 666.66. The grant, which will be distributed annually, is a result of two years of negotiations and lobby by the JTA to the Ministry of Education and Youth that has now actualised.

Speaking at the JTA basic school tertiary education grant award ceremony at the association’s headquarters last week, President La Sonja Harrison said the association was especially pleased to be able to aid teachers at the foundation level of the educational system .

“It’s another victory for the teachers of this nation,” she said.

According to her, the sector was in need of swift and critical attention by the Government.

“It needs more than lip service, getting it right from the start needs funding,” she said.

Harrison noted that to truly finance education, there needed to be a public-private partnership and a willingness to have this national conversation.

“The people need to advance that conversation and hold our government accountable, regardless of which (political) party is in power,” she said. “The educators ought to lead the charge in creating the road map and when that is created then it is we who ought to decide how much it will take to fund and how we are going to work towards that,” she added, noting that some of the financial aid could come also from the diaspora.

Teachers, she said, were deserving of greater respect, and that their contribution to nation-building be valued in a tangible way.

Delores Forsythe, who responded on behalf of the recipients, said that through the generosity of the JTA, she and other teachers could “fulfil their dreams of continuing to educate the nation’s children”.

She disclosed that she had challenges to make the April 19 deadline, “but like Jesus, turning up at the tomb of Lazarus four days late but still on time, you are five days early for my appointment”, she said.

Forsythe said the teachers were extremely grateful for the assistance.

“We have been considered to be just caregivers to the children. It is said that we are just running day care but we did this because we want to make a difference in the lives of the Jamaican children. We do not want to go abroad. We want to stay right here and to make it in Jamaica, to make the change,” she said.

Deputy Secretary General Clayton Hall said it was the intention of the JTA to negotiate next year with the education ministry for an increase in the grant.

Hazel Masters Williams, education officer in the Ministry of Education, said she had the utmost respect for early childhood level teachers as “out of nothing, [they] do marvellous work”.

She stated the ministry was grateful that the grant was made available to help teachers to get qualified “at the right time”.

The selected educators from the West, South Central, and Northeast regions have since last week received grants.