Published 9 December 2022
Basseterre
Buckie Got It, St Kitts and Nevis News Source
Credited: sknnewssource.com
Education central to NRP vision – Caines
LEARNING WILL BE A KEY PLANK of the next Nevis Reformation Party (NRP) administration said candidate Jaedee Caines at a huge public rally last night.
Caines told party supporters that the NRP blueprint anticipates expanding the sixth form college, paving the way for learners to be get greater educational opportunities.
“We want to make it a community college and we know that many of the teachers are complaining that they get the same salary for teaching the secondary School and teaching the Nevis Sixth form college. We are saying college is college, and high school is high school, and the NRP will fix that for you,” she assured.
“In this Nevis Community College, we want to ensure that there is the Nevis Sixth Form component (and) Adult and Continuing Education. In other words, if you have completed school but you want to go back and do some extra classes, we want to ensure that you can do that,” Caines explained.
She continued, “We also want to ensure that our people who aren’t able to travel overseas to get a university degree and may not have the means to stay and get it done from the comfort of their homes perhaps because of distraction by children, we want to provide you in a space to get these things done.”
Nevis has a staggering 35 percent unemployment rate blamed on the inept Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM) regime headed by lawyer, Mark Brantley. Caines said that not all unemployed young men are lazy but many of them just want opportunities to learn and earn.
“Young men, many of you really want to work. You have said to me that you are not lazy but the opportunities are only coming every couple of years, and I am assuring that it will not be the case with this administration because we are not going to give you a fish we are going t teach you ho to fish. Once we teach you how to fish you are going to feed yourself and your family,’ she stated.
Other aspects of the NRP’s education plan includes introducing a free breakfast programme to benefit every child attending Charlestown Primary to help parents struggling to provide for their children adequately because of escalating food prices.
“Every child attending the Charlestown Primary School who want free breakfast will get free breakfast. This is needed because many of our parents leave for work early and even though we make the breakfast we can’t always rely on the children to eat what we leave for them.”
“The reality is that the cost of food is so high, many of our children are not getting a complete nutritious meal. We recognise that a lot of our children are now ending up with diabetes and other medical illnesses and we want to play a part in that in terms of ensuring that what they eat will not lead to that,” she explained.
Ensuring that transportation is not a humbug for regularity and punctuality at school is also an NRP concern. Many learners have to walk long distances to school because their parents cannot afford the high cost. This, she said, pains her and therefore she announced that a school bus service will be introduced to transport children to and from school to relieve struggling families.
“There are children who have to walk to school in the hot sun with heavy backpacks, and we want to provide some relief. So, for those living further such as at Hamilton we will provide a school bus service for you,” Caines announced.
