Henry-Wilson urges PNP to help parents with auxiliary school fees
Published:Tuesday | August 17, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Daraine Luton, Senior Saff Reporter
RETIRING POLITICIAN Maxine Henry-Wilson has charged her party - the People's National Party (PNP) - to think of ways to remove the burden of auxiliary school fees from the backs of parents.
At the same time, Henry-Wilson has warned against the PNP becoming a machinery which exists only to win state power.
"We have to come up with some ingenious ways to fill that gap between what the Government provides and what is needed for us to perform at world-class standards," Henry-Wilson declared on Sunday evening during a South East St Andrew constituency conference at Clan Carthy High. "If we don't do that, then we are constantly going to have a situation where there are these auxiliary fees because the principals, when January comes every year, don't have any money to pay for the water and the light."
Gov't funding insufficient
The Government currently pays the tuition fees for students in public schools up to the secondary level. However, many schools charge high auxiliary fees to augment the funding it receives from the state. The schools have said government funding is insufficient to effectively deliver quality education to students.
Henry-Wilson, a former minister of education and the member of parliament for South East St Andrew, warned that if the issue of funding education is not properly resolved, the country will suffer.
"If our children are to be able to compete with others, if they are going to get those jobs that we talk about, if we are going to be able to deal with crime, we need to talk about how we finance the education system," she said.
The PNP has said it is putting in place a set of policy mixes relating to sectors such as education which it plans to implement under what it calls the 'progressive agenda'. But Ronald Thwaites, one of the party's standard-bearers and MP for Central Kingston, said the delivery of the progressive agenda is "taking too long".
Henry-Wilson, meanwhile, has said that the financing of education is "a conversation that the PNP has to seriously address as we prepare ourselves to govern because we are still the party of education".
In her address on Sunday, she said it would be a disservice to the mission of the party if the PNP does not properly position itself to lead the country.
"I have no doubt that the PNP can win an election. But for me, the PNP is more than an electoral machine. The PNP is the vehicle for change and for bringing sustainable development to this country. So even as we prepare to organise, we must also prepare to govern," Henry-Wilson said.
The PNP won four consecutive general elections between 1989 and 2002 under P.J. Patterson as the president. It then lost the 2007 general election by four seats to the Jamaica Labour Party, which had spent 18 years in the political wilderness.
"Governing is not about making noise, governing is not about making promises. Governing is about having plans and having people to implement those plans. Governing is about telling the people the truth, bringing the people into the process, making them know that change and development takes blood, sweat and tears," Henry-Wilson said.
The next general election is constitutionally due in 2012.