Avia Ustanny, Sunday Gleaner Writer

Dr. Christopher Tufton - File

The Programme for Advancement through Health and education (PATH) has come in for mixed reviews from parents, guidance counsellors and technocrats alike.

While the payment of school fees is a huge relief for parents, the programme has not impacted significantly on attendance or performance in her inner-city school, states Desrene Miller, guidance counsellor at St. Anne's High School in Kingston.

PATH is a conditional cash transfer (CCT) programme - the first of its kind in the Caribbean - which provides financial benefits to poor families.

The programme provides a health grant for attendance at public health clinics at regularly scheduled intervals. The second benefit is an education grant, which is contingent on children aged 6-17 attending school for at least 85 per cent of the total number of school days each month. Eligibility for the programme is determined through the use of a 'proxy-means' test.

Across the board, guidance counsellors state that the programme has been very effective in removing an economic burden from the shoulders of parents.

Paul Messam, counsellor at Mona High School in 2006, says: "The PATH programme is very effective, without a doubt. Many of these students are from the lower economic bracket of society. Their parents cannot afford the costs of sending them to school or find it difficult in doing so."

Poor parenting

But, the assistance has not changed the problematic matter of poor parenting.

Miller of St. Anne's complained to The Sunday Gleaner: "The little things (for which) they stop the children from school! They stop them to look after their younger siblings. Some of them (students) come to school very late and when you ask them it's because they have to take the younger ones to school or buy things for the stall before leaving for classes."

She adds: "Also, when they are ill and cannot come to school, the parents do not want to take them to the hospital and wait for service. They prefer to keep them at home and give them a few pills. The problems we have are not with the PATH programme, but with parents who could not care less.

"All they care about is the school fee being paid. They do not come to PTA (parent-teacher association) meetings or to other forums to express their concerns. Parental involvement is not there. The administration of the PATH programme needs to encourage parents to get involved in the lives of their students."

While one Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) report indicates that initial impact assessments suggest that levels of client satisfaction for PATH are high, and that the programme is an improvement on pre-existing welfare services, persons who believe they have been unfairly excluded are less than completely impressed.

Few changes needed

Lecturer at the University of the West Indies and Jamaica Labour Party spokesman, Christopher Tufton, notes, "(while) PATH has benefited many ... it could be more effective with a few changes and better analysis".

"Firstly, there needs to be greater public education about the existence of the programme. There are too many vulnerable groups that are unaware and this is demonstrated in the programme being under subscribed," argued Dr. Tufton.

"Secondly, there needs to be a review of the approach to determining who qualifies," he said. "I have seen persons, who genuinely cannot afford to attend school, but who are refused by the programme. The fact that you have a television in your home does not mean you can afford school fees".

In agreeing with Dr. Tufton, Beverley Barnett (name changed), a single parent aged 37 and chronically unemployed, says she applied on two occasions for benefits from the PATH welfare programme for her children but was turned down each time.

"They told me that I was not qualified. I applied for my daughter who attended Westwood and my two sons attending primary school in St James." The children were aged 7, 10 and 14 at the time of the last application. "It would have helped because I have no help from two of the fathers," the mother laments. The children attended school for many years without books and without lunch.