NEWS & NOTES: Gov’t budgets $8.4B for local high schools + George Davis steps up as PAJ president + Burger King hands out $3.8M worth of scholarships

WELL DESERVED: For the 2018/19 academic year, Restaurant Associates Limited (RAL), operators of Burger King, have handed out scholarships totaling $3.8 million. Twenty-four students embarking on studies at local secondary and tertiary institutions are the beneficiaries. The prestigious Burger King Open Tertiary Scholarship, introduced in 2017 and valued at $900,000, went to Anna-Kay Hudson, a 19-year-old former Campionite and UWI Mona freshman. The Lois Sherwood Scholarship was presented to St. Andrew High’s Tatyana Graham; the Lois Sherwood Arts Scholarship went to Amelia Wellington and the Rodwell Lake Scholarship was presented to Rhagete Price, who is heading to UWI Mona to pursue studies in microbiology and biochemistry.

>> An impressive sum of $8.4 billion (including allocations for the PATH programme) has been set aside for secondary institutions for the just-started 2018/19 academic year. According to Education minister, Senator Ruel Reid, the disbursement to institutions is being maintained at a maximum of $19,000 per student, with special support in selected areas of up to $11,000 per student. Honouring its commitment to increase funding to primary, all-age and junior high schools, the Government has set a budget of $4.2 billion. “As part of our general preparations,” Minister Reid says, “school plants have been renovated, furniture and other equipment have been provided and, most important, the first tranche of operational grants have been sent to our schools in good time to allow for the smooth re-opening of our institutions.”

>> Broadcast journalist and newspaper columnist George Davis has been elected President of the Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ). Davis, who was elected unopposed, succeeds Beyond the Headlines’ Dionne Jackson-Miller, who served two consecutive two-year terms and did not seek re-election. The body’s vice-presidents are Michelle Wilson Reynolds and Gillian Haughton. Completing the executive: Celia Morgan (treasurer), Archibald Gordon (secretary) and Karen Madden (assistant secretary). The PAJ’s five directors are Helene Coley-Nicholson, R. Christene King, Audley Boyd, Stokely Marshall and Jackson-Miller.

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