After failing to complete high school, Jevon Joell, Tamisha Smith, and Tecia Boland have learned the value of an education.

And they told The Royal Gazette they owed it all to the private school owned by Progressive Labour Party Sen. Neletha Butterfield.

The school -- Children and Adults Reaching for Education or CARE -- officially opened on Friday at the former Base lands in St. David's some 13 years after it began in Sen. Butterfield's Pembroke basement.

It offers computerised courses, Internet usage, computer-assisted instruction for students, computer skills, and the GED (high school diploma) programme which includes writing skills, literature, the arts, science, social studies and mathematics.

CARE also has a programme called Choosing Success which helps young people develop skills for employment and to deal with peer pressure, dating, and other decision-making relationships.

And while Jevon, Tamisha, and Tecia have been at the school for less than two years, all said they have already experienced the benefits of CARE.

Jevon -- who was "tired of sitting around at home'' -- has determined that he wants to be an entrepreneur after two months at the school.

Noting that he preferred CARE's "one-on-one'' method of teaching to the regular high school setting, he said: "I like the small classes and working on the computer.'' Being at the school has given Jevon, who did not receive his high school diploma, a sense of direction.

"I want to go on to college and become an entrepreneur,'' he said.

Tecia, who started with CARE last year, said she planned to attend college in London and become a "computer specialist''.

However, she pointed out that CARE was not "all about computers'' as she had initially believed.

"It is a school which helps us to receive what we missed out on in (high) school,'' Tecia said.

Tamisha echoed similar sentiments.

"When I first came I thought it was a computer course,'' she said. "But it offers us all the subjects we would get in high school. In fact, I think it is better than a regular high school because in a regular high school if one person is acting up, it will disrupt the whole class. But here students know that this will not be tolerated.'' The students also pointed out that there was a camaraderie at CARE which they believed did not exist in many other schools.

"I expected it to have a lot of rude kids,'' Tecia said about the school.

"But it's nice. Everybody sticks together.'' She also urged "other young people out there who don't have their (high school diploma) papers'' to enrol at the school.

"It will give them a chance to become somebody (successful) in life,'' she stressed.

CARE's, new spacious facilities, shorter school hours, and its teachers' -- "especially Sen. Butterfield and Kirk Butterfield'' personal attention also made the school desirable, the students added.

The surrounding atmosphere of the school -- opposite Clearwater Beach -- also helped.