STEM scholarship brings math teacher back to inner-city alma mater

When Erica Thompson graduated from Charlie Smith High School in Kingston several years ago with 10 Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) subjects, she had one goal in mind: to become a teacher at a non-traditional institution like the one she attended.

“My aim was not to go to a traditional high school. My aim was to come back to, if not Charlie Smith High School, an inner-city school that persons would think nobody can get 10 subjects from,” she said.

With the encouragement of one of her teachers, the then 17-year-old enrolled at The Mico University College to pursue a degree in mathematics.

With limited financial resources, she was able to obtain a scholarship under the Government’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programme, to complete her studies.

“Once I received the scholarship [in the second year at Mico], it put my mind at ease, knowing that I didn’t have to fund my university tuition out of pocket,” she said.

Under the programme launched in 2023, the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service, through the Students’ Loan Bureau (SLB), is providing 2,250 scholarships to boost the country’s STEM capacity over a five-year period.

One thousand two hunred and fifty new student-teachers at The Mico University College will be granted full tuition scholarships, along with 1,000 students from low-income households attending the University of Technology (UTech).

Grateful for scholarship

Thompson, who has returned to her alma mater as a mathematics teacher, is grateful for the scholarship and the opportunity to contribute to the development of students from underserved communities both inside and outside of the classroom.

The experience of having to delay her scholarship application until her second year of study, due to not having the required documents, further fuelled her drive to help students who may not have the information, support, or resources they need to achieve their full potential.

Thompson underscores that “life and the curveballs that I went through” have motivated her to use her role as an educator to help transform lives.

“I didn’t have certain documents that you are supposed to have at a certain age, so it was a difficult process to get the scholarship,” Thompson said.

“When I started at Mico University, I didn’t have a TRN (Taxpayer Registration Number). I didn’t have anybody to look about that TRN for me to get into university. It was a stranger who had to do that for me,” she noted.

“I wouldn’t want students, or my students at least, to go through the situation that I went through. I want to leave an impact on students, a positive one at least. I don’t want to be an educator who students are scared to come up to. I want to not only be an educator but a motivator, an inspiration to my students, to say, yeah, you can go out there and make something of this life,” she said.

Embracing mathematics

Thompson believes that children can succeed regardless of their circumstance, and she imparts that belief to her students every day.

“They can [succeed] if they put their mind to it. I didn’t have a choice because I am one of the oldest children that my mummy has. My brother and I came to this school ... he graduated a year before me,” the former head girl and prefect pointed out.

“I had two other siblings looking up to me, so I didn’t have a choice but to succeed. Don’t watch the environment, and it is not about the school that you go to. It is what you go there and do. It is all about the mindset. Don’t watch people or the environment. Just do what you have to do,” she added.

The young mathematics teacher, who said she has “always been good at the maths”, encourages students to embrace the subject.

“What we as teachers try to do is incorporate real-life situations into the lessons to help them relate it back to the situation that they live in - everyday life,” Thompson said.

“I use a lot of manipulatives. There are also a lot of YouTubers that can help students learn maths using jingles and so forth,” she adds, noting that platforms such as Google and Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (GPT) can be used to gain a helpful understanding of the subject.

Persons interested in accessing the STEM scholarship may visit the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service scholarships page for application details.

Information can also be found on the websites of The Mico University College and UTech.

JIS