142 years of service - Rousseau Primary School honours retirees

Five retired educators from the Rousseau Primary School in St Andrew have been honoured for a combined 142 years of dedicated contribution to the institution.

They are former principal, Aldith McDaniel Jones, who gave 42 years of service to the school; Ena Crawford, 32 years; Beatrice Beckford, 28 years; and Iona Harris, 10 years. Marva Fearon was recognised posthumously for 30 years of service.

At a special ceremony held at the school yesterday, the honourees were presented with plaques while there were tributes in song and the spoken word.

Guest speaker at the event and Minister of Education Rev Ronald Thwaites, in hailing the honourees, said "no amount of pay can compensate you" for the years of devoted service.

He noted that with dedicated teachers in the classroom, and parents fulfilling their responsibilities at home, there will be greater outcomes in the delivery of education.

Beckford, who responded on behalf of her fellow honourees, said Rousseau Primary became their other home.

She said the institution, located at 1 Ricketts Avenue, St Andrew, was one of the best schools in the island.

"It is a school of quality, so work hard, children, and achieve, achieve, achieve, because the sky is the limit. Thank you, we enjoyed ourselves," she said.

In the latest National Education Inspectorate (NEI) report, Rousseau Primary was identified as a school that is making progress.

The institution, in recent years, has developed strong stakeholder partnerships for its development programmes.