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Ruseas Inducts Honorary Alumni

Ambassador Madge Barrett and businessman Charles Johnston are the latest additions to the Ruseas family as the two stalwarts were made honorary old students by the Ruseas Old Students’ Association (ROSA) at their 50th Anniversary Members’ Luncheon.

Though they themselves did not attend the school, they were honoured for their significant contribution to Jamaica’s development. Additionally it was revealed that Johnston’s great grand and grand fathers attended the school while Ambassador Barrett’s husband is a past student.

Situated in Hanover, the educational institution which celebrated its 230^th anniversary last year has over 2600 students and is the third oldest traditional high school in Jamaica. Rusea’s was the first school to establish a geometry lab in Jamaica and the first with a language curriculum in the English Speaking Caribbean.

It is also the Alma Mater of the present Governor General Professor Sir Kenneth Hall. ROSA was formed in 1957 and as President Lloyd Tomlinson stated, the association now has a five year plan to assist the present crop of students achieve their full potential. There are plans to build a ROSA building with additional classroom space and a resource room at an estimated cost of $4million. Work is to start in July and end before the start of the next school year.

Guest speaker Prime Minister Bruce Golding in his address said that it is good when entities other than the government step up to tackle the educational upliftment of our children. “When I was at school, at both St. George’s and Jamaica College, many of us succumbed to the scholastic bigotry of referring to Rusea as that ‘little country school’, not realizing that Rusea’s had preceded both J.C. and George’s.

He noted that Ruseas had produced many illustrious alumni “including someone who has the power to fire me, therefore I approach my address with a great deal of caution.” Whenever you see a school perform well, invariably it is because that school has a strong school family of dedicated students, parents, teacher body, past students and community.”

The government he said spends in excess 50 billion dollar annually on education. “Are we getting 50 billion dollars of value and if not, why? We don’t want to send them home until they have acquired something to sustain them in life in order for them to build an economic future. We therefore will bring the HEART /NTA into the schools to provide every child with options.”

The process of education transformation he added will include the monitoring of teacher performance /capability; adequate school management; decentralized education unit; introduction of education inspectors; lesson delivery with greater application of technology; established homework centres and expansion of student assessment.

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