Vacancies to fill

Alfred Thomas, principal of Brown's Town High in St Ann, has less than a week to fill nine vacancies on his teaching staff after facing the bulk of teacher resignations in late August.

However, he is not very optimistic that he will be able to complete this task in time for the reopening of school on September 2 and is anxious about the impact it will have on the teaching and learning process.

“I am especially worried for the sciences ... . We have lost our physics teacher, we have lost our chemistry teacher, the science head of department going on vacation leave and we are yet to fill his position - integrated science and biology. It is really concerning,” he told The Gleaner.

Thomas further outlined that he was trying to fill the space left by six teacher resignations, two teachers who have gone on leave, and one teacher who has moved on to another job.

The subject areas affected also include mathematics, auto mechanics, English language and English literature, physical education, and industrial arts.

So far, he said he has only been able to recruit an agricultural science teacher and is in the process of filling an English language and English literature position. Thomas said he was also seeking to engage a Cuban teacher to teach chemistry at the two-shift school.

Stating that this is the first time his school is experiencing the loss of so many teachers, Thomas, who has been principal of the school for nine years, lamented the many times potential teacher replacements confirmed for job interviews but failed to show up.

“Last week, we had interviews. We shortlisted four persons for the English language. They all confirmed, only to not turn up for the interview. We shortlisted for integrated science and human and social biology. Three persons confirmed. None of them turned up for the interview. We shortlisted two for physical education. They confirmed. None turned up,” he shared.

At Yallahs High School in St Thomas, Principal Mark Malabver is trying to fill vacancies for a literacy teacher, three science teachers, a technical and vocational and education and training teacher, and a physical education teacher before school reopens.

He noted that a combination of resignations and vacation leave has left him with a strained staff of 69 to start the school year.

“That impacts on how smooth we'll transition into the teaching and learning come September. It also has implications for other staff members because you may have to merge classes, put other classes on teachers' timetables, which will eventually lead to teacher burnout, which will eventually lead to teacher absenteeism,” he said.

Like Thomas, Malabver said he had shortlisted teachers for the posts, who then withdrew their interest at the last minute.

Frustrated, he contended that the teacher shortage in the system is exacerbated by the Ministry of Education and Youth's response.

“To my mind, the ministry has not articulated a clear strategy as to how it is that they are going to treat the teacher crisis. As a matter of fact, I don't even think the ministry has accepted that there is a crisis in our education system,” he said.

However, the education ministry has pointed to a decrease in the number of teacher resignations. Data from the ministry revealed that the number of teachers who are resigning from the sector has decreased over the last three years.

In May to August of 2022, eight hundred and fifty-two teachers resigned. Four hundred and eighty-nine teachers resigned in 2023 over that same period. So far this year, over that same period, 135 teachers have resigned.

“It must be noted that resignations do not equate to migration abroad. Teachers also resign to take up jobs at different schools, sometimes closer to home or where there are clear vacancies,” the ministry said.

However, these figures are significantly divergent from those quoted by Opposition Spokesman on Education Damion Crawford, who, during a press conference yesterday, described the number of teachers resigning from the profession as a “crisis”.

According to his estimate, approximately 1,400 teachers have resigned over the last school year. However Crawford did not provide a breakdown of how many took place during or after each term.

“When one teacher is absent at the secondary level, it impacts 160 students because it's four cohorts of 40, so the average teacher who is teaching at a high school would teach upper school 10 and 11 or lower school eight and nine. And at 10 and 11, we have two 10 and two 11, which would have been 160 students-one teacher,” he said.

The opposition spokesperson also blasted the Government for its proposal to recruit teachers from overseas to fill vacancies, stating that it is “unplanned and lacking in further information that is necessary for us to judge the impact that it will have”.

However, earlier yesterday, during a post-Cabinet press briefing, Education Minister Fayval Williams downplayed the furore over reports that the ministry has been engaging Ghana and The Philippines to recruit teachers.

She said that there has not been any new recruitment of teachers apart from the 29 Cuban teachers who were recently engaged to teach Spanish in primary and high schools and the others that were already in the system.

Williams stressed that the Government has not formally engaged any other countries for teacher recruitment.

“We've had exploratory talks with two countries that have indicated their interest in having their teachers in our environment, and that's because they have excess teachers in their country… but there are talks. There's no signed MOU or anything like that,” she said.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com