Alpha Institute expands offerings
Music still at the core of curriculum
NOW OPERATING as the Alpha Institute, the Alpha Boys’ School has added several new projects and subjects to its curriculum to bring it in line with its newly acquired status. Although music remains an integral part of the school operations, other subject areas like greenhouse farming, screen-printing, barbering, and woodwork have been placed alongside, and on par with, the school’s original thrust, bringing a brand-new dimension and a broadened scope to the institution’s activities.
In a recent interview, the school’s administrator, Margaret Little Wilson, told The Gleaner, “We are really in the redevelopment mode to take Alpha into the 21st century. We have a rich legacy in tradition and performance, and we intend to maintain it.” The administrator, whose role is distinctly different from that of the principal, singled out Dr Joshua Chamberlain, Charles Arumaiselvam, and music teacher Clayon Samuels as the key persons in the redevelopment initiative. Samuels told The Gleaner: “We are continuing the tradition of the wind instruments set by the Skatalites, and we recently won the Best School Band Competition and are awaiting the results of the RSM (Royal School of Music) exams sat by 10 members.”
BIG BRAND
One of the notable features of the school’s new developmental thrust is the high level of sponsorship that the programme enjoys. This, the administrator thinks, is due in large measure to the reputation of the school and the standard it has set for itself, which offers encouragement to sponsors and investors. “Alpha is a big brand, and they (the sponsors) know of the works we have done and the results we have achieved. And the pleasure they experience from the transformation of these young men makes them want to help us and be a part of the action,” Wilson asserted.
The Tourism Enhancement Fund and the Environment Fund of Jamaica are two of the entities that have recently come on board to assist the school – the first throwing its support behind the creation of an outdoor courtyard for musical performances and the second towards the greenhouse project aimed at extending the landscaping and farming trades. The third major project under way is a historical centre and museum at the southern extremities of the property as the administration aims at repurposing and refurbishing spaces that were originally part of the convent.
Little Wilson was, however, quick to assert that the school was not sitting on its laurels waiting for assistance. The Sister Ignatius Hospitality Room and the football field are occasionally rented out to generate income for the school, and on completion of the outdoor courtyard, it will be similarly used.
The school, with hours that run from approximately 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Mondays to Fridays, on a non-residential basis, continues to cater for poor and uneducated dropout schoolboys who were expelled from school and gives them a second opportunity for remedial education and to learn a trade. Little Wilson concluded: “Music continues to be our flagship trade here, but we also cater for those who are not that musically inclined. We are moving in accordance with our motto – ‘Upward and Onward’. What we are very proud of is that most of these young men get a job at the end of the day.”