Lewis promises that UPP Administration will revamp education system and construct a secondary school in Rural West

Improvements in the education system will top the United Progressive Party’s (UPP) agenda once it takes public office.

Speaking at last week’s Party rally, Senator Richard Lewis, the UPP Candidate in St. John’s Rural West, said the Gaston Browne Administration has failed the Nation’s youth.

Lewis notes that the pathway to tertiary education is a sound secondary education.  Therefore, the lack of proper infrastructure and resources in the secondary schools has resulted in eight out of every 10 students failing to qualify for matriculation to college or university.

He says the UPP will address this problem by reducing the current overcrowding of classrooms and by establishing a high school in the Rural West constituency.  

This institution, he says, will replace the Five Islands Secondary School, which was appropriated by the Government for the fifth campus of The University of the West Indies.

Additionally, Lewis promises that the UPP will restore the annual School Uniform Grant for students from kindergarten to Form 4.

The Grant started out with the distribution of two regular uniforms under the UPP Administration.  However, the social programme was watered down to the provision of one uniform a year under the Browne Administration; and parents have since complained they are unable to get the uniform because vendors are refusing to honour the vouchers.

Further, Lewis says the requisite resources will be provided to enhance the teaching/learning process.

The UPP Rural West Candidate says the rebranding of the technical and vocational education facilities will also be undertaken.