Education, Youth and Information Minister, Hon. Fayval Williams, says that the first staging of the National Summer School Programme is going well.
“We are pleased with summer school…our tutors took to it and our students as well and summer school is (doing) what it (is) intended to do, especially with the (face- to-face component), in terms of finding some of those students,” she said.
Minister Williams was speaking with JIS News at the Hope Botanical Gardens in St. Andrew on July 31.
She was visiting with students participating in a summer school organised by 16-year old Jaheim Brown from St. Thomas, who hosted a fun day at the venue to close out the programme.
During the visit, the Minister handed out tablets and provided refreshment to the children.
The National Summer School forms part of the ‘Recover Smarter – National School Learning and Intervention Plan (NSLIP)’ aimed at helping students to recover from learning loss due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The programme got underway on July 5 and sessions are being held for approximately two hours per day, Monday to Thursday, up to August 19.
Classes are being delivered online and face-to-face, with the latter component primarily targeted at students, who have not been consistently engaged with the education system.
Meanwhile, Minister Williams praised Jaheim for supporting the education of young children in his Yallahs community.
“(We commend) Jaheim on his efforts in ensuring that children in his area, instead of not going to school, that they have some teaching and learning and that is to be commended. He could be doing thousands of other things, but he chose to spend his time ensuring that the young ones in his community and beyond were gainfully engaged education-wise, and so we are here to support his efforts and to encourage him on,” she said.
This is the fourth year that Jaheim has hosted the summer school programme, benefiting over 30 children. He engages them in language arts, mathematics, reading and spelling.
Jaheim, who attends St. Thomas Technical High School and aspires to become an early childhood instructor, told JIS News that he finds fulfillment in teaching children.
“That is why I started it…education is the key to life,” he said.
