Stakeholders of President’s College (PC) including past students and board members yesterday met with the Minister of Education to discuss concerns about the school and the minister has now indicated that she will consider the possibility of opening the school to Georgetown students.
During a round-table discussion at NCERD in Kingston, a number of issues were raised by the former students including the state of the infrastructure and the poor functioning of the board of directors.
For more than four hours, approximately 30 former students asked Minister Priya Manickchand questions about the school’s current standing and what exactly can be done to address this.
Last month, the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) results were announced and the school was noticeably missing from the ‘top schools’ list.
At yesterday’s gathering, Manickchand was questioned at length on just why the entry requirements for the school had been lowered.
Chief Education Officer (CEO) Olato Sam explained that, over the years, fewer students were deciding to accept a place at President’s College and were instead choosing other senior secondary schools or a school in their communities.
According to Sam, in some years only 49 or 55 students would enrol in the school’s first form classes when the school has a maximum capacity of 120 new students.
In response, the former students attributed the school’s low intake to a number of factors including the poor maintenance of the school’s infrastructure and the fact that Georgetown students are not offered a place at the school.
Last month, Manickchand explained that President’s College is the top school on the East Coast which allowed both residential and non-residential places. This year, students who attained 491 marks and more and who live between Cummings Lodge and Mahaica were awarded a non-residential place while residential spots were awarded to students from all regions except Region 3.
However, no spots were awarded to students from Georgetown. After having this apparent flaw pointed out, Manickchand conceded that there might be need to change this policy.
“Perhaps coming out of this meeting – if the concern is that there would be Georgetown students who would like to go to PC because of financial circumstances – what we can have coming out of this meeting is a solution that we could possibly look at opening it to our students in Georgetown if they wish to go; once they have been given one of these five national schools then they can go on a residential place,” Manickchand said.
The minister revealed that there are currently 18 staff vacancies in the school and the former students expressed their belief that this also was playing a part in the school’s degeneration.
Caption for photo:
PC MOE – Some of the old students at yesterday’s meeting with Minister of Education Priya Manickchand and ministry officials
