100 students benefit from tuition assistance in St Mary West

Twenty-five per cent of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) for Western St Mary was spent on education. This was the largest percentage spent on any single category of the CDF allocation.

According to Robert Montague, member of parliament for the constituency, this was to ensure the development of the constituency’s human resources.

Montague was addressing the awards ceremony held at the Gayle Seventh-day Adventist Church in St Mary earlier this month.

“We should not put anything before the education of our youth – no colour, no party line, no politics. Every child should be given the opportunity to get a full education. It does not matter where you are, it is about where you are going. If you want to invest for the long term, the best investment is in education,” he said.

One hundred participants received cheques that will go towards tuition for the 2019 academic year.

Students were required to submit applications to the constituency office. Awardees were selected based on the severity of need.

This is the seventh year of the programme. One beneficiary of the project, who gave the reflection at the ceremony, Movetta Gohaygan, who is now a teacher, said that she would not have been able to complete tertiary studies without the financial assistance she received from the programme.

Montague has played a key role in a number of initiatives, such as having St Mary become the home of two tertiary campuses (Moneague College and the International University of the Caribbean). He also partnered with HEART/Trust NTA to institute eight training centres in the parish and with the people of Cuba to have Jamaica host the only ‘Yes I Can’ literacy programme in the English-speaking Caribbean.