Portia scholarship a blessing to recipients ahead of holiday season

For Ellajean Johnson, one of the six recipients of a scholarship in honour of Portia Simpson Miller Day last Tuesday, the $100,000 received will go a far way for her this holiday season.

To her, the sum of money might seem to be a drop in the bucket in comparison to what she owes, but it is $100,000 of a burden being released from her shoulders.

According to the 36-year-old woman from Manchester, she owes tuition fees since she was enrolled in a primary education programme at the Catholic College of Mandeville, before being transferred to Northern Caribbean University (NCU) where she is now pursuing studies in primary education as the Catholic institution faces closure and is unable to accommodate the batch she was enrolled in.

Her major challenge, on the other hand, is that NCU charges much more for tuition than the Catholic school did, and that is why she chose to apply for the Portia Simpson Miller Scholarship.

While speaking with The Gleaner at the People’s National Party’s (PNP) headquarters on Tuesday, where the scholarship was handed to her and five other recipients, Johnson said started her course with no subjects.

‘No subjects’

“Let me tell you how the journey started. I was working at an ice cream shop and I graduated with no subjects and I went to HEART and I did housekeeping, but that wasn’t my passion. I went because I didn’t want to stay home,” Johnson told The Gleaner.

“I was there at the ice cream shop and someone came to me [from the Catholic College of Mandeville] and said, ‘Even if you have zero subjects, we will take you’, and I said to myself, ‘It is time for me to move from this ice cream shop’ because when I get my pay, I cry,” she said.

With those words of commitment from the visitor, Johnson said she never needed another. She enrolled in the college before it closed its doors.

In addition to not having any Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) subjects to begin with in 2009, she said fate allowed her to become enrolled in the programme for a bachelor’s in education.

“I didn’t apply for anything. I didn’t apply for the Bachelor’s in Education. I applied for housekeeping because I had a certificate in that at level three, but when it was time to pay the money, they were searching for my name and could not find it on that batch. They found it on primary education and I said I decided to stick with it … and I have never failed a course,” Johnson, who is now in her third year of studies, explained.

As a slow learner growing up, she said opportunities were not sent her way, because she lacked the attention she needed to show her true potential, and this seemed like the grand opportunity for her to rebound and help children growing up as how she was, so she “worked with it”.

“I was a slow learner and I wanted to go into schools and pay attention to most of the slow learners there, because what I realise is that most of the slow learners miss out on so many opportunities and I just want to make a change for this, because while growing up, I realised that I missed out on opportunities as a slow learner,” Johnson, a past student of Winston Jones High School, said.

“Teachers didn’t see me and they didn’t allow me to do certain things. They never had confidence in me, because most persons the teachers saw as bright persons, they allowed them to do certain things such as writing on the chalkboard, mark papers and those things, and we have the potential, but they don’t have confidence in us,” she said.

Now, she is excited to be on the verge of becoming a teacher and making a difference.

Good Samaritan

For this festive season, with her tuition arrears piling up, the student worker is hoping another good Samaritan will come her way and help her to pay her fees.

Johnson, who is a huge fan of Jamaica’s first female prime minister, said she believes more time should have been given to entrants to summarise the life of that courageous woman.

“I applied for this scholarship because I admire Portia and I was saying they should have given us more time to describe Portia Simpson Miller because one minute was not enough. There is so much behind her that we can say,” she told The Gleaner.

The other people who received scholarships in recognition of Portia Simpson Miller Day were Ruth Ann Perry, Amelia Fearon, Nuereka Jada Wray, Alisha Robinson and Tiara Edwards.

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com