SAJ donation to aid Marcus Garvey Basic School students’ education

The Shipping Association of Jamaica (SAJ) donated a smart television to the Marcus Garvey Basic School in Greenwich Farm, Kingston 13, to assist in the education of its students.

The gift was presented by staff of the association to the institution’s principal, Judonna Smikle, with approximately two dozen students present, last week.

Regarding the need for the television, Smikle said, “We are big on technology and the use of technology and, as a result, in our classes we use laptops or educational videos,” adding that while the school has projectors, the images are sometimes unclear due to poor lighting. “We have discovered that with the use of the television, we are able to connect the laptop to the television and, as such, it will show larger. So we use the TVs most times to show the educational videos.”

She also noted that the return to in-person instruction has had a positive impact on the students, including having the school’s full complement each day. “We cater to the early- childhood sector of education, which are the students three years old to five years old; we are grateful that they are back to face-to-face classes as we saw that there were major challenges with our virtual or online teaching practices. So now that we have returned to face-to-face lessons, we are able to give that one-on-one support that we weren’t necessarily able to give during the pandemic.”

However, the adjustment to regulations aimed at limiting the spread of COVID-19 took some adjustment for the young students, Smikle shared. “Initially, we had to teach [the protocols], so we couldn’t expect them to know social distance, just stay six feet apart; we had to teach that. We would have previously taught them how to hug, how to show love, but now, because we don’t want anyone to get sick, we don’t want your friend to get sick, we are not able to hug or touch your friends. And it took a while, it took a couple weeks to get into the routine, but now you’ll hear them say, ‘No, you are too close to me.’ They are getting it.”