Black Immigrant Daily News

Renelle Best is the overall top student in this year’s Barbados Secondary School Entrance Examination (BSSEE) also known as the 11-Plus or Common Entrance.

The St Gabriel’s School student placed first in Mathematics and English with a raw score of 100 in both subjects and an A in Composition.

Minister of Education, Technological and Vocational Training, Kay McConney announced the 11-Plus results this morning during a press conference at the Ministry’s Constitution Road, St Michael headquarters.

Meanwhile, the top boy, Azario Gooding of St Geroge Primary School scored 100 in English, 97 in Mathematics and an A in Composition.

Best and Gooding will be heading to Queen’s College this September.

Isaak Headley of St Stephen’s Primary also entered the top three for English with a raw score of 100. He rounds out the list of three to score a perfect score in the English paper.

Madison Smith of St Paul’s Primary School followed Best in the Mathematics section with a score of 100 as well. They are the only two girls and two students to achieve the perfect score in Mathematics this toss in comparison to 37 students in 2021.

The Ministry of Education reported 3,086 students registered for the exam from 68 public schools and 19 private schools. There were 27 absences due to medical reasons and these students wrote an alternate paper on July 19. McConney assured that all students have been placed now and the results are back.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

According to the George Town Revitalisation Plan, a pedestrian-friendly mixed-use environment is coming to downtown George Town. Some members of the public still fear, however, that the “mixed-use” proposal will not result in the “preservation and renewal of historic buildings and landscapes” that the Plan says it hopes to achieve, but, instead, will mirror urban images of other countries and make downtown George Town more expensive rather than affordable.

Tearing down old buildings

An example of non-preservation was seen this weekend when an old building was torn down within the “revitalisation area.” If this activity continues throughout the area, the remaining old, wooden homes and buildings near Goring Avenue, Eastern Avenue and elsewhere in central George Town will be at the risk of being sacrificed for the creation of an image that does not remind Caymanians of the “old Cayman.” If this happens, then George Town will not look like a unique, historical town that Caymanians and tourists can enjoy, but, instead a replication of structures from big cities that people came to Cayman to avoid.

Evidence of replication

Evidence of replication of other cities can be seen at work now on Cardinal Avenue. In fact, imagery of other cities is boldly stated in the Plan, which says:

Cardinal Avenue and Main Street are to be resurfaced with large tiles, seating, shade trees and lighting replicating Paseo del Prado in Old Havana, Cuba… It is also proposed to construct an ornate fountain to replace the triangular traffic island. The plan also calls for improvements to public footpaths (PROW) to encourage more utilisation.

The statement of replicating Paseo del Prado in Old Havana, Cuba, while odd, has probably gone unnoticed by members of the public. It is not that Caymanians have no history with Cuba, but that the emphasis should be placed on Cayman history and creating memories for Caymanians rather than paying homage to another place which speaks a different language, has distinct customs and celebrates an almost entirely different past.

Affordability for downtown residents

The tiling of streets and mixed-use buildings also bring a cost along with them. This cost is important when analysing who lives in downtown George Town and whether they can afford to continue living there, post-revitalisation.

In connection with this, the Plan, using information from an old census report says:

More than 50% of residents earned less than $20,000/annum, 72% had high school or lower educational attainment and there was very little diversity in building uses and population.

Since that data was collected, the entire George Town has increased by almost 3,000 households, George Town boasts the highest level of unemployment and the greatest number of persons not in the labour force, according to the 2021 Census.

In addition, the 2021 Census reported that more than half of the employed labour force in Cayman were in earnings brackets lower than the average earnings bracket.

Combining these facts with the 11 per cent and 12 per cent increases in the cost of living in the first two quarters of 2022, it is worrying whether lower income people in downtown George Town will be able to afford the prices in the revitalised area. Objectively speaking, if they cannot spend, then the revitalisation may be of no benefit to them beyond their aesthetic appreciation of the tiled streets and transplanted vegetation.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

The coronavirus pandemic has had a profound impact on the country’s justice system with breaches of the Disaster Risk Management (Amendment) (DRMA) Act, 2021, and related charges heading the list of the three most frequent criminal charges filed in the parish courts during the year.

The other two were assault occasioning bodily harm and unlawful wounding. Males accounted for 77.5 per cent of those charged.

This information is contained in the Planning Institute of Jamaica’s Economic and Social Survey (ESSJ) 2021 edition.

While the survey did not break down the charges in the three categories, there were regular reports of people being brought before the courts for breaching the COVID-19 measures contained in the DRMA that were enacted to mitigate the effects of the coronavirus. Many were charged for breaching the curfew, for not wearing a mask or for unlawful gathering.

Meanwhile, the pandemic also had two major effects on the operations of the country’s court system in 2021, with 78 per cent of hearings taking place via video or teleconference and a marked increase in the number of cases heard as a result.

Described as a multimodal approach, 64.2 per cent of hearings in the Supreme Court were by video conference, 23.4 by teleconference with the remaining12.4 per cent being in person hearings.

Thus, while the number of court days was reduced, the number of cases filed and heard increased. The ESSJ said this was the case in both the Supreme and Parish Courts. It noted that the case clearance rate, which is closely related to the case disposal rate, provided a measure of the number of cases disposed (regardless of date/year of initiation) for every new case filed in a particular period.

“The higher the case congestion rate of a court the more burdensome the caseload and the longer it will take to dispose of cases,” the ESSJ said.

It also said that there were 31,015 new criminal cases filed in the parish courts in 2021, a 46.5 per cent increase when compared with 2020.

The Corporate Area Parish Court – criminal division, with 20.7 per cent, followed by the St Catherine and St James Parish Courts, with 16.3 per cent and 10.9 per cent, respectively, accounted for the three largest proportions of new criminal cases filed.

The parish courts of St Mary, Trelawny, and St Thomas accounted for the lowest shares of the aggregate new cases filed, each with under 4 per cent.

In the meantime, the overall average disposal rate for cases originating in 2021 increased by 12.9 percentage points to 77.5 per cent. The Westmoreland Parish Court had the highest disposal rate of 89.5 per cent, while the Manchester Parish Court had the lowest with 65.3 per cent. Notably, 10 of the 13 parish courts had a disposal rate of over 70 per cent.

“The increase in the case disposal rate positively impacted the case clearance rate, with the overall case clearance rate increasing to 106.5 per cent, 10.4 percentage points higher than in 2020.”

As with the disposal rate, the Westmoreland Parish Court had the highest case clearance rate of 125.2 per cent, while the Clarendon Parish Court had the lowest at 95.2 per cent.

And, the overall case congestion rate recorded for the criminal division of the parish courts was 136.1 per cent, a 20.8 percentage point reduction compared with 2020. The Clarendon Parish Court had the highest congestion rate, 190.1 per cent, and the Westmoreland Parish Court had the lowest, 107.3 per cent.

The survey also found that guilty pleas continued to account for the largest proportion of cases disposed, with 48.7 per cent, followed by dismissed cases, 17.0 per cent. Guilty verdicts accounted for 2.7 per cent and not guilty verdicts, 11.1 per cent. Mediated settlements accounted for roughly 8.5 per cent of the cases disposed.

The conviction rate (sum of guilty pleas and guilty verdicts) increased by 13.7 percentage points to 51.4 per cent. Almost 40 per cent of cases were disposed of within 90 days and 60.6 per cent within six months.

On average, the criminal division of the parish courts took seven months to dispose of cases.

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