Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts

Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts is Jamaica's national tertiary arts college, in Kingston, teaching visual art, music, dance and drama. Its roots go back to 1940, when the sculptor Edna Manley began evening art classes at the Institute of Jamaica's Junior Centre; the first formal art school opened in 1950 at the DaCosta Institute, 1 Central Avenue, Kingston Gardens, with 64 students. Around independence, in 1962, the painter Barrington Watson established a four-year diploma curriculum, and the school was renamed the Jamaica School of Art in 1967.

In 1976 the art school was brought together with separately located Schools of Music, Dance and Drama under the Cultural Training Centre, an arm of the Institute of Jamaica, on a shared campus at 1 Arthur Wint Drive. UNESCO identified the four schools as pivotal Caribbean cultural institutions in 1979, and the Organization of American States designated the centre the Inter-American Centre for Caribbean Cultural Development in 1983. In 1995 the four schools were consolidated into a single college, renamed Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in honour of Manley, and the School of Visual Arts began offering a full degree programme in 2004. The college now comprises six schools: Visual Arts, Music, Dance, Drama, Arts Management, and Continuing Education and Allied Programmes.

The School of Music has trained a substantial share of Jamaica's working musicians, arrangers and music educators, functioning as the formal counterpart to the apprenticeship the recording studios and sound systems provide. Composer and arranger Peter Ashbourne studied at its predecessor, the Jamaica School of Music, and later joined its faculty; dancehall artist Spice studied music and drama there before her recording career.

Also known by its earlier names: Jamaica School of Art (1967-1976) and, as the umbrella body bringing the four schools together, the Cultural Training Centre (1976-1995).