TRELAWNY, JAMAICA: South Trelawny primary school to cease operation in June due to its dwindling student population. The school, currently has on roll 56 students and three teachers, including the principal

BY ANTHONY LEWIS Observer writer  Thursday, May 21, 2015

ALPS, Trelawny -- The Alps Primary School, nestled in the farming community of Southern Trelawny, is to close its doors at the end of this school year, due to its dwindling student population.

Students at the school gate (File)

The State-run institution, which was reclassified years ago from an all-age school to its present status as a primary school, currently has on roll 56 students and three teachers, including the principal, according to data from the education ministry's Region Three office in Brown's Town, St Ann.

According to school board member Sheryl Gibson- Brown, the decision to close the school was conveyed to members of the Alps community earlier this year, during a meeting with officials from the ministry of education.

"We have to face reality. Personnel from the ministry of education Brown's Town [office] came and had a meeting with us [parents, school board] and the community. So, we have to face reality that it is going to be closed," Gibson-Brown told the Jamaica Observer West.

When school reopens for the next school year, Alps Primary students and teachers will be transferred to nearby schools, including the Ulster Spring Primary, located approximately five miles away from Alps.

Meanwhile, Member of Parliament for Southern Trelawny, Marissa Dalrymple-Phillibert, has lauded Education Minister Rev Ronald Thwaites for being receptive to her idea "to use the end of one era as an opportunity to start another on the grounds of the closing Alps Primary School".

Minister Ronnie Thwaites on Right

"I said to myself, why don't we open a new campus of the edu-skills centre [that was started at the Albert Town community centre] to teach young people about farming and other disciplines, and I thought, Ia wonder if the minister would lease me this school, so that we could open a facility to teach the young boys that farming is not something dirty and is the way forward," said Dalrymple-Phillibert during the launch of the Ira V Brooks Memorial Foundation for Education. more