OPPOSITION LEADER PETER PHILLIPS, PROMISES FREE FOOD AND SCHOLARSHIPS FOR STUDENTS, IF THE PNP IS ELECTED TO OFFICE!

A promise of free food for schoolchildren has come from the political platform.

Dr Peter Phillips, the president of the People’s National Party (PNP), yesterday said that if Jamaicans vote for his party to form the next government, it would do more to help feed schoolchildren.

He was speaking at the party’s 80th annual conference at the National Arena.

“The next PNP Government will provide every student with one meal daily, prepared to required nutritional standards, beginning with early childhood and primary schools,” he said.

It is not uncommon for the education sector to be the target by politicians. The Jamaica Labor Party, in its successful campaign to unseat the PNP in 2007, promised, among others things, tuition free education.

Students

Although the promise was kept, schools increased auxiliary fees saying that the policy made it burdensome for the institutions to stay afloat.

Yesterday, Phillips said the next PNP Government would make tertiary education more affordable.

He said that a ‘First in Family Scholarship’ program, would be established to provide full scholarships for the first child of every Jamaican family to enrol in a tertiary institution.

Phillips also said that the next PNP Government would cap the monthly repayments of student loans at a percentage of income, and repayment will only begin when the graduates are employed.