News

No 'Comfort' in back-to-school

WHILE SOME SCHOOLS are prepared for the new school year, other children will be returning to their schools in the rural and inner-city areas as they left them - dilapidated.

The Comfort Castle Primary and Junior High School in Portland is among them. Ms. Delphine Gray, principal, told THE STAR that the school is without many important things, such as a proper library, a teacher's cottage, a sick room, a canteen, furniture and, of course, teachers.

"Right now we are using the staff room as a sick bay ... we also do not have a proper library - it is a makeshift one. We got a bed and put it in the library and that is what we use as the sick bay. We use a ply board for displays as well as a partition for privacy," she said.

Gray, who has been the principal for over a year, said the conditions have been the same since the start of her tenure.

Last term, there were nine teachers, 180 students, 16 of which went to the junior high school. The junior high comprises of grades seven, eight and nine.

"We don't have the resource books to give them. Sometimes they have to go to Port Antonio to the library, but most times that doesn't happen because the parents do not want to, or are not in a position to do so," she said.

She also said the Ministry of Health could not register their canteen because of the deplorable conditions. "We do not have some of the necessary stuff, like a stove, a sink and so forth. They said we need to have three sinks, but we have no money to do this sort of thing. We are a class one school, so we get the least amount of money from the government in grants to do things like this."

Wait and see

Ms. Gray said though the principals from Portland recently met the Minister of Education, Maxine Henry-Wilson, she prefers to wait and see if any changes will come before she gets her hopes up.

"She assured us that we would be taken care of, but she said that there were some schools that were in a critical condition, so they would have to be dealt with first," she said.

"I am not really hopeful because things have been this way for a really long time now ... It is not a nice feeling to have the children come back into this situation, but there is nothing I can do except wait," said Gray.

Another principal, Lebert Wright, of the Kemps Hill High School in Clarendon said his school is as ready as it could be, considering it did not receive any outside help.

"In terms of infrastructure, it is not a lot, but we are in a better position than many other schools. The pressure falls more on the school than the ministry. We have to set our own standards and try to maintain them," he said.

Principal of the Charlie Smith High School, Dennis Kelly, says his school is fairly ready for the new school term. Kelly, principal since 1997, said, "About 95 per cent of the infrastructure is in place. We will have to re-access our furniture count, because a number of students who should have turned up did not, and we only have enough for those who came. So if any more turn up, we can't turn them away and we will have to get additional furniture."

He said though recruitment of teachers sometimes posed a problem because of the location of the school in Arnett Gardens, St. Andrew, they are only without a sportsmaster.

Garfield Higgins, public relations officer at the Jamaica Teachers Association, (JTA) said, "A comprehensive overview of the state of readiness of the schools will not be available before the general council meets on Saturday, when the representatives from all the parishes will be here."