All Jamaican Children Deserve a Good Education – Joe Issa

Executive Chairman of Cool Group of companies, Joe Issa, says he believes in promoting education because it is the surest way out of poverty, the scourge of all societies.

Issa, who has established charities as a conduit for giving back, has focused on education as it opens up opportunities for gainful employment, which provides the necessities for daily living – food, clothing and shelter.

However, he cautions that sometimes, depending on how enabling the business environment is, more is needed, such as a good education, creativity and imagination or even retraining in order to break completely, the cycle of poverty.

“Yes! Literacy and numeracy will take you somewhere in terms of getting a job, but you may not even need to be able to read, write and count for these low-paying jobs, such as digging holes and filling them back. And when all the holes have been dug and filled, what next is left to do? And that’s when the cookie crumbles.

“So, numeracy and literacy have their uses, such as in functionality: enabling you to follow directions in traveling, dosages in dispensing medicine, recipes in cooking and applications in using agricultural chemicals, etc. But beyond these, the mere ability to read, write and count is woefully inadequate,” says Issa.

In 1987, Issa founded “Educate the Children Fund to buy books for disadvantaged children in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean and a year later, he established the “Joe Issa/Holy Cross Scholarship Fund” to send students to university.

He describes a good education as one that does not merely enable school leavers to get a decent entry level job, but one which allows them to matriculate to higher education, such as college and university and get a profession.

As a civic-minded philanthropist who has hosted youth camps and disadvantaged children in the communities in which his businesses operate, Issa believes that schools must be progressive in order to churn out university-ready children.

With this in mind, he founded “Global Education 2000”, which has twined Jamaican schools with their counterparts in the United States. Several schools have benefited from these exchanges, including Three Hills All Age School in St. Mary, which was twinned with Broward Elementary School in Tampa, Florida.

Issa, who was pleased with the idea, said it’s a “major development which will see an exciting, rewarding exchange of cultural ideas and thoughts between students and teachers at both institutions.”

“Much of who I am today is due to my good fortune of having been able to access a good education and I wish nothing less for all Jamaican children,” Issa says.

Education Budget Data Prompt Call to Redirect Resources towards the Poor Relative to the Rich, Ripple Effect Greater

Expenditure on salaries and running the school system are not helping poor students in particular.

Chairman of Cool Group of Companies, Joseph John Issa, says in an interview that based on the 2012/13 education budget, the Jamaican authorities should be urged to consider redirecting resources to educating the poor relative to the rich, as the ripple effect in the economy will be greater and will empower a new commune that can now contribute sustainably, to the social and economic development of the country.

Issa’s statement comes in light of the 2012/13 education budget which shows that a relatively small amount of resources is directed specifically at the poor, compared with that which goes to everyone including the rich, who already possess the means.

“When we spend on educating the poor, we are not just giving the proverbial fish, but we are empowering primary recipients, who in turn will empower others, and so on, churning successive generations of individuals who are empowered to make a greater and lasting contribution to national development.

“You will not find that great a ripple effect with any other income cohort except the ‘have-nots’, because they tend to spend relatively more of their income, which increases the earnings of others and their ability to spend. This is unlike the ‘haves’, who do the exact opposite,” says Chairman of Cool Group of Companies, Joe Issa.

A former student at the London School of Economics (LSE), he added that “this ripple effect by the poorer cohort will also be reflected in better social interactions and information reach to communities.”

In terms of the level of budgetary support given to Education generally, and the poor in particular, figures extrapolated show that in 2012/13, Education received $77.5 billion or just 12.6 per cent of the national budget. Of this amount, 97.8 per cent was for recurrent expenditure, leaving just $1.72 billion or 2.2 per cent for capital expenses, which Central Administration gobbled $985.8 million or 57 per cent. [1]

The remaining budget of $735 million, in which the ‘have-nots’ might have benefitted include approximately $30 million for Students Nutrition, $222 million for Early Childhood Education, $241million to Primary Education, $3 million for Special Education and $69 million towards Youth Development Programmes.

Commenting on the low level of funding for books, Joey says, “Expenditure on salaries and running the school system are not helping poor students in particular. Such expenditure is for everybody – rich and poor alike. But when you spend money on buying books, you are helping poor students relatively more as the rich kids will already have their own,” Joey posits.

He says in addition “it is not just about books anymore, as more and more of them and other critical information materials are being digitized and made available online, which is not as accessible to children with no means.”

While commending the $223.8 million or 0.3 per cent contribution to the national education budget by the major private sector Foundations in 2012/13, which went towards the poor, Joey says much more is needed.

A philanthropist, Joe has given much to education over the years. By his own account, born into a rich family he could not imagine what it would be like going to school without lunch or books.

With very good reason to give back to education, Joey founded the widely publicised ‘Educate the Children Fund’ in 1987 while attending the renowned LSE, which took the idea onboard and gave it a life of its own. [2][3]

A year later, after completing his studies at College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, USA in 1988, he launched the ‘Joe Issa Holy Cross/Jamaica Scholarship Fund’, which made a scholarship available to a talented undergraduate Jamaican child once every four years to attend the prestigious Holy Cross.

The scholarship was first won by his alma mater, Campion College in Kingston. The initiative was commended by the media, which stated that “the scholarship was one of the most sought after awards by students across Jamaica.” [4]

Another major Joey initiative is ‘Global Education 2000’ – a project which helps Jamaican schools by partnering them with their US counterparts. Several Jamaican schools are said to have benefited from various exchange programmes.[5]

Since then, as Chairman of Cool Corporation, a group of ‘Cool’ branded companies that cut across many industries, Joey has set up Cool Charities to give back largely in the education of those most in need to empower them.[6]

References
1.     Ministry of Education 2012/13 Budget
2.     Educate the Children Fund: January 26, 1987 issue No. 255 of LSE’s paper, The Beaver.        3.     February 5, 1987 edition of the Star.
4.    Joey launches Joe Issa Holy Cross/Jamaica Scholarship – Jamaica Record, Friday
July14, 1988
5.    Expanding “Global Education 2000” – North Coast Times Feb 6-12, 2000 p.13- a
6.    Link to Cool Charities