Jamaica Labour Party leader Bruce Golding addressing journalists at a press conference yesterday at the JLP's headquarters on Belmont Road. At left is Opposition spokesman on education, Andrew Holness. -Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer

Despite the general election being held one week prior to the re-opening of schools, Opposition Leader Bruce Golding yesterday said the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) remains committed to abolishing tuition fees for students in September if it forms the next government.

However Mr. Golding did not say how the JLP would fund this venture but insisted that it would cost less than $1 billion.

"That's the dilemma (but) that commitment still stands," Mr. Golding told The Gleaner yesterday when asked how his party would abolish tuition fees in September with only one week to implement such a regime.

At a press conference called late yesterday, Mr. Golding assured the administrators of schools that the institutions would not be deprived of any revenue arising from this decision. By August 27, most parents would have already paid their children's tuition fees but, Mr. Golding said, a system could be worked outso that the fees could be reimbursed.

He said, however, where parents did not pay fees, a JLP government would make those funds payable to the schools on behalf of those students.

But Mr. Golding also appealed to Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller to roll back the tuition fees, arguing that the "country cannot afford not to afford it".

Birth certificate hardship

The JLP leader also commented on the "hardships" being experienced by parents who could not afford the cost of birth certificates.

He said the instructions given by the Government to waive the fees for children at the Registrar General's Department was not being observed.

"We can't have those children being kept at home because the parents cannot afford the cost of getting the documentation that is required for registration," he said.

In the period leading up to the 2002 general election, then Prime Minister P.J. Patterson announced that cost sharing would be gradually phased out by 2005. However, this did not happen. Parents were instead asked to pay half the tuition fees for students, while the Government paid the remainder.