Williams: Teacher resignations less of an issue for new school year

THE MINISTRY of Education and Youth has reported that it has been spared the huge crisis faced at the end of last year’s summer term as there have been far fewer resignations over the past year.

From January to June, the ministry said 287 teachers resigned their jobs, a 43 per cent contrast to the 506 who resigned over the same period in 2022.

Education Minister Fayval Williams shared the figures during yesterday’s post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House, indicating that the situation was not as bad as it appeared because there was also an increase in the number of trained teachers waiting to secure work.

To strengthen her point, Williams highlighted a scan of advertisements published in the local newspapers up to Tuesday which indicated 20 per cent clear vacancies and that 34 of the positions were for teachers to fill in for others on four- or eight-month vacation in temporary or contract positions.

There were also 46 per cent of jobs advertised that did not indicate whether the positions were temporary or a clear vacancy.

She believes that the Government’s efforts over the last year have contributed to the reduced number of teachers migrating.

And to boost their numbers come September, Williams called on school administrators and trained teachers yet to gain employment to utilise the MOEY’s online job portal, which went live on July 1.

“We’re adding this year, for the first time, a job recruitment platform to which both schools and teachers looking for positions, they can meet each other in the virtual space, meaning you can upload your résumé to the job-recruitment platform, and jobs can be advertised there as well,” Williams said.

“We think it will make for a more efficient meeting of those in need of jobs and those looking for jobs,” she added.

The minister also emphasised that there were close to 400 specialised teacher training graduates this year. The categories include 28 for business studies, 36 for computer studies, 60 for English literature/literacy, 20 for industrial technology, 17 for geography, 31 for social studies, 126 for mathematics, 30 for integrated science, nine for biology, eight for chemistry, two for physics, and three for Spanish.

Additionally, 70 teachers have come in from Cuba to boost the Spanish offerings.

The annual bill for ‘replacement or substitute teachers’, as they are often referred to, costs the Government approximately $3.1 billion per annum.

Williams noted that the education ministry would continue communicating with school boards and principals to fill gaps for teachers for the start of the upcoming academic year.

“Like any other sector of worker in the economy, it is to be expected that on an annual basis, we will see movement in and out of the education sector. If you look across the financial sector, the medical field, in IT or any sector in Jamaica, there is a per cent of persons who make personal decisions to go into other fields, to migrate, to retire, to go into entrepreneurial endeavours, and so on, and so the education sector is no different,” Williams said.

She also outlined solutions they would continue to put in place for temporary employment of educators as 2,300 teachers will be eligible for four-, or eight-month earned vacation leave starting September.

“If you recall, there were a number of different strategies, maybe over 50 different strategies. We’re back again to say that school boards are empowered to take early recruitment decisions, that school boards can engage teachers who are in their approved vacation leave, so if a teacher chooses to come back to work, they, obviously, will be paid twice - once for their vacation and second to work in the school system,” Williams explained.

“We also encourage our schools to see how best they could extend service for teachers scheduled to retire. They can engage part-time teachers. They can engage teachers who have retired since January 2018. They can engage pre-trained graduate teachers. They can engage final-year student teachers in recognised teacher-training programmes. Obviously, there would have to be some flexibility to the scheduling,” she said.

Last year at this same time, 1,664 teachers went off on either four months or eight months of vacation leave or retired.

Teachers earn four months of vacation after serving for five years. Teachers also earn eight months of vacation after serving for 10 years.

That represents about seven per cent of the cadre of teachers, with approximately 25,000 teachers in the education sector.

Robert Nesta Morgan, minister without portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for information, shared that teacher migration is also affected by the graduation of trainees.

“Every year, there are more teacher-training graduates than the amount of teachers that are leaving the classroom, and we’re running the risk of having a lot of teachers unemployed because there is not enough space in the education system to employ them,” Morgan said.

“I think one of the things the media needs to start thinking about is not whether or not more teachers are migrating than who are being graduated, but how are we going to find space for a lot of the teachers who are leaving teacher’s college, who are having challenges because there is not enough space in the public-education system for them.”

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com