Shereeda Beepott (left), representing Miss Teen Portmore pageant, assists Brianna Davidson during a Digicel Foundation handover ceremony of an enrichment room at the Waterford Primary School last Wednesday. - Anthony Minott/Freelance Photographer

Waterford Primary School, located in the municipality of Portmore, now has a fully furnished enrichment room and computer lab.

The initiative was spearheaded by Digicel Foundation and the Ministry of Education.

The enrichment centre, which is valued at more than $2 million, is equipped to tackle literacy challenges. Its raison d'etre is grounded in the Ministry of Education's 2015 national literacy target of 85 per cent, said Major General Robert Neish, executive director of the Digicel Foundation.

The school's principal, Rohan Walker, said that the school has a 74 per cent literacy rate, garnered from a grade-four test set by the education ministry. The resource centre is equipped with laptops and literacy and numeracy gadgets.

280 students to benefit

Dr Michele Meredith of the Education Transformation Project in the education ministry said the enrichment room was designed for students who are reading below the respective grade levels or are reading above their grade levels. The room will be in full operation in September. About 280 students will benefit.

The school also received a brand new computer lab. The project is a collaboration between Member of Parliament for South East St Catherine Colin Fagan, Elite Restaurants, the operators of the school's tuck shop, and the institution's parent-teacher association (PTA). Fag's constituency office donated five computers while Elite Restaurant contributed 10. The PTA furnished the room and put air conditioning in the lab.

The MP's donation came from the Constituency Development Fund.

There was more good news for the school as David Sterling, a manager for oil firm Chevron, committed $650,000 to the upgrade of the school's library.