Minister of Education Andrew Holness and Audrey Sewell, permanent secretary in the education ministry, address the media during a press conference to outline the Government's preparation for the new school year yesterday. The press conference took place at the ministry's office at Heroes Circle, Kingston. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer

The lack of space in some schools will continue to be of concern this year.

The trimming of government expenditure has meant that the development of infrastructure for education has been deferred.

So far, as disclosed by Education Minister Andrew Holness at a back-to-school press conference at the ministry yesterday, the building of three schools would be postponed.

"Education infrastructure is very expensive, so by deferring three schools you are deferring $1.5 billion," he told journalists.

Quality not affected

He sought to assure the nation that the quality of education offered would not be affected despite the delay in creating new spaces.

"There are some areas that we have cut but it will not affect the delivery of programmes and services in core and critical areas. So even though we have trimmed our budget, neither the students nor teachers will feel an impact."

Holness said the ministry had been forced to become more efficient with less funds.

"In a way I am very happy for that because much of the discussion in education is about more funds and I agree we need more funds, but I also maintain that we can do more with the funds that we have," he said.

The education minister added that schools had already been allotted 50 per cent of their tuition support for the year, which amounts to a total of $1.1 billion.

The areas of furniture textbooks and school-feeding grants were also addressed.

Approximately $97.5 million worth of furniture has been delivered to all schools and a total of $600 million in contracts have been awarded to four suppliers for secondary-level books while the contracts for primary textbooks were submitted to Parliament for approval.

Feeding grants

The sum of $133.9 million in school-feeding grants has also been sent to schools.

According to the minister, there were still 60 schools yet to receive their funding because the institutions failed to submit the needed information for the transmittal of the funds.

He noted that the account numbers provided by six of the school were incorrect, while the bank has rejected the information provided for 21 accounts. The sum that would have been transmitted to those accounts totals $7.1 million.

The minister also noted that students must not be deprived of any service that is subsidised or fully-funded by the Government because of non-payment.

nadisha.hunter@gleanerjm.com