Funding being secured for six STEM schools

[Jangle]

Prime Minister Andrew Holness has indicated that financing is being put in place to construct six science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) schools across the country.

Holness made the disclosure during the annual Primary Exit Profile (PEP) awards function held at Jamaica House in St Andrew yesterday.

“These schools will not be run under the current education system in terms of the Education Act. We will develop a new scheme of managing those schools because, for us, it is a strategically important programme. We need to create very quickly, very rapidly with guarantees, a generation of Jamaicans who are highly trained in STEM. This is a national priority,” the prime minister said.


Holness noted that the level of passes in mathematics was of “great concern to me”, as it is not just a social problem, as it is imperative for the country’s economic development.

“The country cannot develop without us doing better at mathematics. The jobs that are paying better and the jobs that we need to attract to Jamaica, which pay better, involve science, technology, engineering and mathematics,” he said.