He told evertonfc.com: "Sometimes people in life need opportunities and we're going to give Jermaine that opportunity to see if he can score goals in the Premier League.
"He can certainly do it in the lower leagues and from what I've seen, I can see how he is a goalscorer. He's looked fantastic in training. Whether he can step up to the big league, we don't know.
"It was a gamble but not one too expensive for us to try."