“The Best-Performing Schools Are Catholic Schools”: Three Montego Bay Church Schools Mark 100 Years

• Chetwood Primary and Mount Alvernia Prep and High marked 100 years
• The celebration was held at Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Montego Bay
• Education Minister Dana Morris Dixon said church-run schools lead on results
• She urged St James to double and triple support for its schools

Three Montego Bay schools with Catholic roots, Chetwood Primary, Mount Alvernia Preparatory and Mount Alvernia High School, celebrated their centenary in January 2025 with a service at the Blessed Sacrament Cathedral, the Jamaica Observer reported.

The guest speaker, Education Minister Dr Dana Morris Dixon, used the occasion to make a pointed claim about Jamaica’s school system. “From seeing the results from our schools, we see that the best-performing schools are Catholic schools and others run by our churches,” she said.

The minister drew on her own story. She attended Campion College, a Catholic secondary school, and said that experience shaped her view of academic excellence and spiritual development. “When I look at my own personal experience…it is clear that there is a role for the Church,” she told the gathering.

She also pointed to a newer church-led effort at Holy Trinity High School in Kingston, where newly admitted grade seven students are being given extra support in literacy, numeracy and character development. And she challenged the wider St James community to “double and triple your efforts for all the schools in your vicinity”.

A 100-year-old school is more than a set of exam results. It is a campus, usually on land a church acquired generations ago, with classrooms, chapels and playing fields that have been extended and repaired many times over. In a growing city like Montego Bay, three institutions holding their ground for a century is itself a statement about long-term stewardship.

For parents, returning residents and diaspora families choosing where to live, the reputation of nearby schools is one of the strongest drivers of demand for homes, and the minister’s comments underline how often those top schools are church-founded. For churches, the lesson is that school property is among their most valuable and visible assets, and keeping titles, buildings and maintenance plans in order protects both the institution and the neighbourhood around it.

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