Education News: Government Boosts STEAM, Rights & Digital Access

Date: 2025-08-05 | Location: | Category: Education

Kingston, Jamaica – August 2025
Prime Minister Andrew Holness reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to overhaul structural education inequities at the PEP Awards Dinner on July 31. Emphasizing that public education should guarantee equal opportunity regardless of geography or background, his administration tasked the Education Transformation Task Force with reimagining school delivery—from resources to individualized learning paths


In response to lagging STEAM (Science‑Technology‑Engineering‑Arts‑Mathematics) accessibility, the Government allocated JMD $689 million to build Jamaica’s first STEAM Academy in Greater Bernard Lodge, St Catherine. The HEART/NSTA Trust will also commit JMD $400 million to equip technical high schools with state-of-the-art labs—including robotics, virtual welding, hydroponics, and Additionally, the ambitious STEM scholarship programme launched in partnership with UTech and the Students’ Loan Bureau aims to train 1,000 students over five years in engineering and computing careers.

Complementing these efforts, the UNSDG Joint Programme on Digital Transformation for Education rolled out in March 2025—backed by approximately USD 3.7 million from the Joint SDG Fund. It’s piloting a modern Education Management Information System (EMIS) in select schools to digitize administration, monitor the National School Feeding Programme, and improve real-time data-driven decision-making for over 450,000 students