Peta-Gay Ferguson, General Secretary of the People’s National Party Youth Organisation (PNPYO), says Jamaica’s young people, particularly students in Westmoreland, St Elizabeth and other parishes still recovering from Hurricane Melissa, deserve far better than the confusion now gripping the Ministry of Education.

“Will the real Education Minister please stand up?” asked PNPYO General Secretary Peta-Gay Ferguson. “Education sector stakeholders no longer know whether to seek direction from Senator Dana Morris Dixon, State Minister Rhoda May Crawford or Senator Marlon Morgan. If nothing else, the Minister has entrenched the concept of ‘two Jamaicas’ as a living reality within the education sector.”

Ferguson noted that despite prior assurances that school repairs would be completed ahead of the new term, including the Minister’s own remark that Jamaicans “can definitely look forward to a good September morning,” the reality on the ground in St Elizabeth tells a different story.

“We have followed a media house’s probing report on the dire state of Burnt Savannah Primary, and heard the clarion call from the Munro College principal, who is now asking corporate Jamaica to fix what this Ministry has failed to deliver. Our own information confirms that across St Elizabeth, school repairs have been practically non-existent, while a school as critical as Mannings in Westmoreland has been told its repairs will not be completed until December,” Ferguson said.

The PNPYO is also questioning who has been providing proper oversight of the school repair programme across the island. “Who has been monitoring these works, verifying progress and ensuring that contractors and the relevant agencies are meeting their obligations? How is it that, with only weeks to go before the reopening of schools, we are only now confronting the reality that some institutions have barely progressed from the condition they were left in almost ten months ago after Hurricane Melissa? Where were the progress reports, the site inspections and the early interventions that should have identified these delays months ago?” Ferguson asked.

She said the situation raises serious questions not only about the pace of the repairs, but about the Ministry’s management and oversight of the recovery programme. “Parents and students should not be learning through media reports, days before the start of a new school year, that their schools are nowhere near ready. Somebody was responsible for tracking this work. The Minister must tell the country who was responsible, what was being reported to her Ministry, and why corrective action was not taken sooner.”

She added that the Minister’s “good September morning” comment can only be viewed as dismissive of the plight of Melissa-affected students. “If she genuinely believes those conditions amount to a good September morning, she is telling St Elizabeth’s children they deserve no better. Our young people are watching, and they will not accept being an afterthought.”

The PNPYO is calling on the Minister to give a truthful account of the conditions students will return to, identify who has been responsible for overseeing the post-Melissa school repair programme, and provide a credible, school-by-school timeline for the completion of outstanding works, unless, Ferguson said, “she is truly satisfied leaving our children in schools that are simply not ready.”