Tue | Jun 30, 2026

Commentary

Published:Tuesday | September 6, 2022 | 12:06 AM

Jamaican adolescents might indeed have moved on to a new and more dangerous pill-popping culture of drug-taking, necessitating different approaches to the problem. But last week’s report on the development contains critical information gaps,...

Published:Monday | September 5, 2022 | 12:05 AM

In the normal scheme of things, Michael Lee-Chin, like any other entrepreneur, should be entitled to deploy his assets as he sees fit to produce the maximum return. Yet, this newspaper is uneasy not so much by the reported intention of Mr Lee-Chin...

Published:Monday | September 5, 2022 | 12:05 AM

Let’s face it. Our schools will reopen this week with no real improvement over last year. In fact the teachers loss makes it worse. Even in the extremely doubtful event that most vacancies have been filled, the loss of experience and quality...

Published:Monday | September 5, 2022 | 12:05 AM

I recall my mother relating her early days as an educator. She started out teaching at a primary school. She spoke of the day when income tax was deducted from their pay for the first time. The bewildered and teary-eyed teachers ran to the...

Published:Sunday | September 4, 2022 | 9:54 AM

Last week’s ruling by a Bahamas court reiterating that marital rape doesn’t exist in Bahamian law has animated the topic in Jamaica. Hopefully, it will also remind our legislature of a four-year-old recommendation by a parliamentary committee that...

Published:Sunday | September 4, 2022 | 12:07 AM

The Jamaican Parliament is right now deliberating, in a joint select committee, comprehensive tobacco control laws for our country. We are in the final stages of that process. Once enacted, these laws will protect Jamaicans from the harmful and...

Published:Sunday | September 4, 2022 | 12:07 AM

Quite the tide of research points to the inefficiency of corporal punishment as a disciplinary tool. Not only that, according to many researchers that spanking and other forms of physical punishment inflicted during childhood are the cause of...

Published:Sunday | September 4, 2022 | 12:07 AM

He disarms me with the compliment that I am the only one who says his name correctly. Properly pronounced, it is ‘Froswaa Sein Joost’. Then as I reel from the remark, he drops the question, generally based on the news. Although we met as UWI...

Published:Sunday | September 4, 2022 | 12:07 AM

“There is a lack of leadership in our politicians. We talk about another election promise, reducing crime so that you can sleep at night with your windows open. Why make comments, you know, just for the sake of running your mouth, if you’re not...

Published:Saturday | September 3, 2022 | 12:07 AM

The G.C. Foster College of Physical Education and Sport is truly a Jamaican success story. At age 42, this institution is poised to take on an even greater role in imparting technical and tactical knowledge, which are necessary ingredients in...

Published:Saturday | September 3, 2022 | 12:07 AM

The most ominous sign of what the forthcoming COP-27 meeting on climate change portends for small states is that officials from a Group of 20 (G20) major economies, who met on August 31, failed to agree a joint statement at the conclusion of the...

Published:Saturday | September 3, 2022 | 12:07 AM

When the West Indies Federation failed, Guyana took a shot at being the first country to become independent, but this was shot down by the British. Of the two countries anxiously waiting in the wings, Jamaica was the first and quickly jumped the...

Published:Friday | September 2, 2022 | 12:08 AM

The Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) is not a professional association; it is a trade union. A professional association sets standards for members of that profession to adhere to, and then enforces them to protect the image and quality of the...

Published:Friday | September 2, 2022 | 12:08 AM

Jamaica has had a huge issue with brain drain, for many years, because every year, thousands, including many tertiary graduates, leave the country for greener pastures overseas. Myriad reasons, not limited to one’s pay, exist to explain why so many...

Published:Friday | September 2, 2022 | 2:22 AM

There have been, over many years, numerous initiatives, plans, programmes, schemes and projects aimed at restoring public order to Jamaica’s urban centres. They are usually launched with much fanfare then quickly fizzle to, if not die, merely limp...

Published:Thursday | September 1, 2022 | 12:07 AM

When the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) next reports on the island’s progress towards its Vision 2030 goals, it must do more than recite bland percentages of what has been achieved and what is yet to be done. Instead, the agency should...

Published:Thursday | September 1, 2022 | 12:06 AM

Just as diarrhoea or constipation are symptoms, signs, signals of more serious problems in the alimentary canal, the gastrointestinal tract, the digestive system, so is the recruiting of athletes for sports purposes by our specialised educational...

Published:Thursday | September 1, 2022 | 12:06 AM

Guyana’s economic fortunes have, in the last two or so years, taken off in no uncertain terms as a result of the discovery of fossil fuels in economic quantities. It joins Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago as the major countries in the Caribbean...

Published:Wednesday | August 31, 2022 | 12:09 AM

On August 30, 1982 I came to teach philosophy at St Michael’s Seminary, now Theological College, as a Jesuit scholastic. My choosing to come to Jamaica 40 years ago is a most significant aspect of my life. Jamaica has become my home, my nationality...

Published:Wednesday | August 31, 2022 | 12:05 AM

The Jamaica Environment Trust (JET) is concerned with the lack of updates from the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) following the toxic discharge from Windalco’s Effluent Holding Pond (EHP) in Ewarton, St Catherine, on July 30, 2022...

Published:Wednesday | August 31, 2022 | 12:05 AM

It seems that what we hoped for from last week’s annual conference of the Jamaica Teachers Association (JTA) did not materialise: a deliberative affair that analysed and proffered solutions to the crisis facing Jamaica’s failing education system....

Published:Tuesday | August 30, 2022 | 12:08 AM

It’s time to revisit Apocrypha, our favourite Fantasyland beyond the clouds, where all politicians are friends and retired MP Oma D’unn solves political dilemmas by parable. The political scene was heating up as elections were expected soon....

Published:Tuesday | August 30, 2022 | 12:07 AM

There can hardly be any complaints over Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ acknowledgement of embarrassment at the dereliction and squalor along Washington Boulevard, the main artery from the west into the uptown areas of the Jamaican capital. Indeed,...

Published:Tuesday | August 30, 2022 | 12:07 AM

Exactly 100 years ago, the Black Star Line ceased sailing. The shipping venture was founded by Marcus Garvey to link Africa with its diaspora in the Americas. It was part of a wider vision of liberating peoples of African descent around the world...

Published:Monday | August 29, 2022 | 12:06 AM

If you follow international news you will realise that, for all our problems, Jamaica is a blessed place to live. Check the unbelievable distress of our nearest sisters and brothers in Haiti. Check the abridgement of personal freedoms, side by side...

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