... Value for money?

OPPOSITION SPOKESPERSON on Education Ronald Thwaites is calling for an audit into the Career Advancement Programme (CAP).

“... We are asking for a full audit of the Career Advancement Programme to ensure that we are getting value for money and that we are addressing the fact that, in many instances, the CAP programme is stymied because it turns out to be a literacy programme, because so many of those who enrol, whether or not they attend, is because they simply cannot read and write even at that stage,” he said.

Thwaites was speaking yesterday at a press conference at the People’s National Party’s headquarters in St Andrew.

He made this call against the backdrop of the decline in the attendance rate for CAP classes even though enrolment has increased.

Chairman of the PNP’s Education Commission, Elaine Foster-Allen, said that in 2015, there were 6,000 students registered for the programme, compared to 2019, when there are more than 10,000.

She said the attendance rate for mathematics has fallen from 71 per cent in 2016 to 66 per cent in 2019, while the attendance for English has fallen from 70 per cent in 2015 to 64 per cent in 2019.

Introduced in 2010, CAP is a state initiative to respond to the increasing number of persons who complete secondary-level education without any formal certification and have not matriculated to post-secondary education or work.