Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter

Struggling to deal with the problem of hundreds of students leaving secondary schools each year with no qualifications, the education ministry is considering the introduction of a technical sixth form at mainly non-traditional high schools.

'Six Tech' is being designed to ensure that all students leave school with a marketable skill and possibly, some job experience.

"Some schools have already gone ahead of the ministry by setting up Six Tech, where they allow their students who have gone through CXC to come back and do other programmes - some certified by HEART - so that they leave with a skill," Holness declared recently.

He gave high marks to the principals who had already instituted the Six Tech, and declared the intention of the education ministry to move in that direction.

Name search

"We are toying with a name. We are calling it the Careers Opportunity Programme. We haven't settled on that yet, but we are thinking of a two-year programme that will allow students to remain in school, and we bring the resources for training to them," added Holness.

He argued that the present programme administered by the National Youth Service, where school leavers are taken to camps for training, is very expensive and not particularly effective.

"This will allow us to use the schools in the evenings when they are down, and the students won't necessarily be in school for five days each week, because it will be work-experience related," said Holness.

The education minister said he would be telling the nation more about the programme in the coming weeks.

Holness' concerns were high-lighted last week when the Ministry of Education released data that showed that 16,464 boys and 9,612 girls in the 16 to 17-year-old age group left school last year without any form of certification.