We can all assist our community's schools, says past student

Minna Small, past student of the Content Gap All-Age School.-Photo By Diana Hall

Although most residents of Content Gap district, St. Andrew, are not willing to assist the community's school, Minna Small, past student, says she helps in the "little ways". "I live across the road from two young children and I invite them to my home on Sunday afternoons even when their parents are home. I read to them and help them with their schoolwork. I love to see when children grow-up with the discipline and respect that their elder taught them. And to get respect from children, we as adults have to show them respect," she says.


Grade six students at the Content Gap All-Age School anxious to respond to a mathematics problem. -Photo By Diana Hall

Small was a student of the Content Gap All-Age School in the 1960s and now works as an events planner.

Driven but No Driver: Rural School Performs "Superbly" but lacks Adequate Resources

Students from Content Gap All-Age School gather around
the only computer at the school. -Photo By Diana Hall

“I have received many reports from other schools that my netball and football team have a lot of potential, even though they don’t have a coach to train them nor a field to practise on. The teams practise on an open lot in the town square,” says Mrs. Lillian Madden, the principal of an all-age school in rural St.Andrew, Jamaica.


Some members of the school's netball team practising
on the pathway at the front of the school. -Photo By Diana Hall


The school's football team at the National Stadium of Jamaica.
-Photo taken by Diana Hall, from a picture hang on a wall at the Content Gap All-Age School.

“The first time the football team played on a football field in Kingston, they felt lost. They weren’t use to the huge field.” However, Madden says she is motivated to go to work because of her love for the profession and the students. She has been a teacher at the school since 1979 and now teaches in addition to her administrative duties as principal.

She says although the school lacks the desired support from the Ministry of Education, students sometimes perform “superbly” in the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) which assesses students between ages nine and 11, in the subject areas of mathematics, language arts, social studies and science, for a place in a secondary school. Madden says students have been placed in both traditional high schools such as St. George’s College, Ardenne, Wolmer’s Boys’ and Girls’ schools and non-traditional ones, including Mona and Priory. “I feel so proud when I see them graduating,” she says.

http://www.moec.gov.jm/divisions/ed/assessment/nap.htm

Controversy Over Funds for All-Age Schools in Rural Jamaica

Students from the Content Gap All-Age School standing at attention for the singing of Jamaica's National Athem. -Photo By Diana Hall

All-Age schools are public institutions that enrolls students from grade one to grade nine. In rural Jamaica, most of these schools say they receive limited assistance from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture.
A Video of Students in Rural Jamaica

However, Projects such as the Jamaica All-Age Schools Project (JAASP), are carried out to assess and improve the delivery of education in the rural areas of Jamaica. The JAASP was conducted between 2000 and 2003, and worked in partnership with the Ministry of Education.
JAASP's Homepage

The ministry says the direct beneficiaries of the project were the children and communities in the most disadvantaged, rural remote areas of Jamaica. The project was specifically aimed to tackle the key issues of “access, quality, retention and equity” in relation to rural education.
Jamaica's Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture's Homepage

Additionally, the Ministry of Education say they supply these schools with grants three times per year, to aid in the payment of utility and maintains bill.


Teachers from the Content Gap All-Age School. From left: Mrs. Melony Walker-Murray(Teacher),Pauline Yates(teacher), Mrs. Lillian Madden(principal) and Mrs.Vonnie Powell-Campbell(Teacher). -Photo By Diana Hall

But the staff at one of the all-age schools in rural Jamaica, say their main source of assistance is from non-government organisations (ngo's), such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Culture, Health, Arts, Sports and Education (CHASE) Fund. Vonnie Powell-Campbell, Vice Principal of the Content Gap All-Age School in rural St. Andrew, Jamaica, says she witnessed some of the USAID's development projects. “The USAID assisted in repairing our roof after Hurricane Ivan,” she says.
CHASE Fund's Homepage
USAID's Homepage