Donald Quarrie VP yearns for move away from shift system
Published:Saturday | August 26, 2023 | 12:06 AMSashana Small/Staff Reporter
Almost a decade after a promise from the Ministry of Education, Donald Quarrie High School in St Andrew is still waiting to be taken off the shift system, says the institution’s vice-principal, Patrick Williams.
The promise was made eight years ago by then education minister Ronald Thwaites during a previous People’s National Party administration.
“It is something that we would love to see,” Williams told The Gleaner this week.
Under a shift system, the first group of students attends school from early morning until mid-day, while the second group usually attends from mid-day to late afternoon. Each group uses the same buildings, equipment, and other facilities.
“Getting off the shift system would allow us to do a lot more in terms of extracurricular activities, getting more subjects, sixth-form programme - ‘cause we don’t have a sixth form at the moment,” he shared.
He contended that because the school operates on a shift system, students are unable to benefit from the Ministry of Education and Youth Sixth-Form Pathways Programme, which it implemented at the start of last academic year. Under this programme, students attend high school for seven years, and students who completed grade 11 are allowed to pursue a two-year course of study with alternative opportunities.
In her Budget presentation in May this year, Minister of Education Fayval Williams said the programme is being offered in 167 high schools and at 40 tertiary/post-secondary centres for the 2022-2023 academic year.
However, the Donald Quarrie vice-principal, who assumed the post last May, said his students were at a disadvantage because they are on a shift system.
“The sessions that the students get, sometimes it’s limited … having a one-day school, we’d get more time to do the academics, we’d get a full school [experience], so to speak, and then at that time, we can compete with the best,” he said.
During a post-Cabinet press briefing in June, the education minister outlined the Government’s plan to transition all 38 schools that operate on a shift system to full-day school. She said five schools out of the 38 were taken off the shift system earlier in the month, but the move was yet to be gazetted to make it official.
With a population size of almost 1,000 students, the Donald Quarrie vice-principal said the school was in need of more classrooms to transition to full-day school but theorised that the education ministry might be a bit hesitant to build new structures at the school’s current location by the sea in East Rural St Andrew.
“In terms of repair and time, when persons [are] building, you’re thinking of safety. First thing you’re going to consider is metal, and metal is not conducive to the location,” he said.
In June, he said the structural integrity of the school’s industrial arts building was deemed compromised by the ministry and the area was ordered closed. For the upcoming school year, he said students who do those subjects would be housed in temporary structures installed by the education ministry on the school’s campus.
However, he said the impending demolition of the industrial arts building presented an opportunity for the ministry to erect more classroom space, which would help in ridding the institution of the shift system.
“The space is just not adequate to have full-day school ,and so it would be lovely if the building that they ordered closed, they could demolish the building and give us a permanent fix for a one-shift school,” he said.