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News, Press and
Upcoming Events
PM TO
LAUNCH “Everyone is a Stakeholder in Education” Public
Private Partnership for 21st Century Education
Prime Minister P.J. Patterson will officially launch the
Jamaica Collaborative for Universal Technology Education (JCUTE)
initiative on Thursday, February 23, 2006 at the Hilton
Hotel in Kingston.
JCUTE is the interim title given to the collaboration
between ICT4D Jamaica and the International Education
Collaborative Foundation (IECF), a non-profit organization
based in the USA. IECF is mandated to build Public Private
Partnerships for 21ST century education in workforce
development for economic competitiveness in merging
economies. Diane Miller, IECF Director of Global Operations,
states “We are most excited at the opportunity in Jamaica to
create a model for the region. It has truly been a wonderful
experience working with both government and industry”
ICT4D Jamaica is a non-profit organization, co-sponsored by
the HEART Trust/NTA and the International Institute for
Communication and Development (IICD) with a mission to
foster sustainable development and global competitiveness,
through research, modeling, advocacy and knowledge sharing
of ICT enabled best practices.
The initiative is expected to provide a solution to the
increasing number of the island’s secondary school students
graduating without the requisite work-related technology
skills by building partnerships between the public and
private sector to fund ICT programmes in schools.
According to Elizabeth Terry, Director of ICT4D Jamaica, the
island’s future economic prosperity is largely dependent on
the capacity of the education and training systems to
produce graduates that meet the requirements of the global
economy.
“The potential for generating new opportunities for
innovative business services in Jamaica will depend, in
part, on the acquisition and strengthening of competencies
at all levels. We believe it is best to focus on our youth
and create a well-educated, trained, flexible and
technologically adept workforce. To facilitate this, a
sustainable collaborative which combines the strengths of
both the public and the private sectors, locally and
internationally, must be developed to lead the charge. No
single group can do this alone. We believe that a Public
Private Partnership (PPP) is the best strategy to realize
our goal, hence our theme for this launch “Everyone is
Stakeholder in Education”, she said.
“The partnership in its quest to support the
institutionalizing of 21st century education in schools is
already working in close collaboration with the e-Learning
Project”, she said.
To date, support for the PPP agenda has been granted by the
Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture, Ministry of
Commerce, Science and Technology, and a significant
cross-section of the private sector, including the main
sponsor for the launch, Cable and Wireless Jamaica Limited.
As stated by Camille Facey, Senior VP, Legal, Regulatory and
Public Policy, “Cable and Wireless has a long history of
investing in the community. We have continued to champion
the integration of technology in education and are proud to
be the major sponsor of the launch and a founding partner in
this exciting initiative.”
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