Metrification

One aspect of the mandate of the Ministry’s Agency, the Bureau of Standards Jamaica, is the monitoring of the national metrication process that was initially undertaken by the Metrication Board. Metrication deals with making changes from the old UK-based imperial units of measurement to metric units, such as metres, grams and seconds. The rationale for the new system was basically to standardize the units of measurement as trade expanded throughout the globe.

Although the metric system has been used internationally in scientific fields for many years, the push to convert the world to exclusively using the metric system only began in the 1970s. Today many countries have adopted the metric system as the official system of measurement. The United States, however, remains one of the last countries in the world to go fully metric. In fact, only three (3) countries, Myanmar (Burma), Liberia and the USA have yet to adopt the International System of Units as their official system of measurement. As a result much confusion still exists.

Jamaica has coped well with that change, for example with gasoline being priced in litres and not gallons. But some people, however, still think in terms of pounds and ounces, as opposed to grams and kilograms. A number of Jamaican recipes still show both ounces and grams, as well as both Fahrenheit and Centigrade temperatures. There is still the occasional need to convert from Fahrenheit to Celcius, mph to km/h, or gallons to litres or vice versa.

The Commerce Division of the Ministry has oversight functions for some of the functions of the Bureau of Standards Jamaica.