Earl Moxam, Senior Gleaner Writer

The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), if it forms the next government, will be seeking funds from multilateral lending agencies to assist in financing the country's Education Transformation programme.

Audley Shaw, the party's spokesman on finance and planning, disclosed at a Gleaner Editors' Forum, on Wednesday that the JLP would be seeking as much as $20 billion per year, possibly from a consortium of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the World Bank to fund elements of the Transformation programme.

Already, preliminary discussions have been held with the targeted institutions, Mr. Shaw said, adding that the response had been positive.

Policy-based loans

"They say that education is an area in which they are prepared to look at policy-based loans because they don't want any child left behind," he said.

The report of the Task Force on Educational Reform was tabled in Parliament, in December 2004. It recommended, among other things, that $52 billion per year be spent over 10 years to transform the education sector to meet the needs of the country.

The Education Ministry currently operates with an annual budget of approximately $30 billion, leaving a deficit of $22 billion per annum to achieve the funding goal set out by the Rae Davis-led task force.

The education task force called for early implementation of the early childhood development curriculum in all such facilities, including training of early childhood practitioners. It recommended as well that provision be made to facilitate students staying in secondary school beyond the normal five years allowed in most institutions, that a literacy remediation programme be implemented where required and that all teachers be trained, at a minimum, to the level of a bachelor's degree.

Early childhood priority

In the event that the country is not able to procure all the money required, Shaw said a JLP administration would give priority to early childhood education.

"If we can't get all the $20 billion to go through the whole system, basic, primary, secondary, let's start with the little ones at basic level and let's put in a remedial programme in primary and secondary, while having the full impact at the beginning (basic school)," he said.

The education Transformation programme, while winning bi-partisan support, has generated some amount of controversy regarding the sources of extra-budgetary funding for its implementation. The first such allocation ($5 billion) was made last year from the funds of the National Housing Trust with parliamentary approval, but without the support of the Opposition, which argued that money from the trust should be reserved for housing, in keeping with its charter.

The multilateral lending institutions represent a better option, according to Mr. Shaw. These funds would be at relatively low interest rates, he argued, with the conditions attached not particularly onerous.

"What's important to them is that we sit with them and exercise appropriate discipline and dot the Is and cross the Ts."

Mr. Shaw's session with Gleaner editors was the first in a series featuring JLP shadow ministers.