Scholarships Available!

EXED offering financial assistance to those entering sixth form programme

Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) results will not be available until next week, but already, administrators at the Excelsior Community College are seeing an interest from several High School students wanting to pursue the sixth form pathway programme (SFPP) at the institution.

The SFPP is a seven-year high-school programme that will allow students who complete grade 11 to pursue a two-year course of study with alternative opportunities alongside the traditional sixth-form curriculum. SFPP will, in effect, increase the schooling period for Jamaican students from grade 11 to grade 13, after which graduates are awarded high school diplomas.

The initiative, which was announced by the Ministry of Education, has met resistance from some school administrators who argue that they do not have the resources, including physical space to accommodate students for an additional two years. Education Minister Fayval Williams announced last week that more than 17,000 students have pre-registered for the (SFPP) in high schools ahead of the new school year.

Deputy Principal/Director at EXED Academy, Sherene Walker, assures that the community college can accommodate those who cannot find placement at their high school.

“We know that not all persons leaving high school make it to their sixth form. Not all high schools have the capacity to contain everyone from grade 11 into lower six, so those persons who are not able to make it to their sixth form programme or those who choose to go to a community college, we have a space here at Excelsior Community College for them,” she told Freedom Come Rain.

She said students do not have to wait for their CSEC results to start the process, as EXED’s Enrolment Unit would collect the documents they have now and update their file when the results are available.  The administrator endorses the GOJ initiative to have all grade 11 students do an additional mandatory two years  and get some level of post-secondary certification.

“As you would have heard, the certification rate among the workforce is very low and many of our college graduates are migrating, so we are basically boosting opportunities for persons to come in and be certified,” she asserted.

An added bonus for students who sign up at EXED is that they might be able to qualify for one of hundreds of scholarships the school is currently offering in collaboration with the Ministry of Education. Walker noted that 1000 students have already received scholarships under this initiative which was launched in 2020. The scholarship is for two years and is for persons who are graduating this year from grade 11 or those who have graduated already and are awaiting their CSEC results.

“As a community college, we provide opportunities for persons in and around the community. With our blended learning that came into place since the COVID-19, we have students all over Jamaica. Since lately, we have included international students, so we know that this is a good opportunity for students,” noted Walker.

 “One of the biggest challenges for any parent is planning for their child’s tertiary education, and with this scholarship, the students are only asked to pay a minimal administrative fee and they get quality Tertiary education, just as if they were at a traditional university.”

Under the SFPP programme, students will be able to leave the secondary education system with one or more of the following: an Occupational Associate Degree, which offers workplace competencies while they are learning the discipline; Certificate or Diploma (within an occupational discipline); an accredited Council of Community College of Jamaica (CCCJ) or University Council of Jamaica (UCJ) Associate Degree; Additional Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and City and Guilds subjects to include Mathematics and English; and National Vocation Qualification-Jamaica (NVQJ) and/or Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) levels two or three.

The NVQJ is equivalent to an Associate Degree under the National Qualification Framework of Jamaica, while the CVQ allows individuals to work anywhere in the Caribbean.