York Castle, Brown’s Town High collaborate to ease teacher shortage
Published:Tuesday | August 30, 2022 | 12:05 AMCarl Gilchrist/Gleaner Writer
To access this article in full please login or register today
A collaboration between St Ann schools – York Castle and Brown’s Town High – has seen the schools solve, to some extent, the perennial teacher shortage issue in Jamaica that has this year reached an alarming level. York Castle principal, Raymon...
A collaboration between St Ann schools – York Castle and Brown’s Town High – has seen the schools solve, to some extent, the perennial teacher shortage issue in Jamaica that has this year reached an alarming level.
York Castle principal, Raymon Treasure, and his Brown’s Town counterpart, Alfred Thomas, say that the arrangement of sharing teachers has been in place for several years and agree that it could be replicated in some other areas to alleviate teacher shortages.
Treasure said because both schools are on shift and are close to each other, the arrangement does work even better.
“Because they are on a shift system, it makes it easy for a teacher who is on a morning shift (at Brown’s Town High) to come to me in the afternoon (at York Castle High), and the truth is, it’s something I’ve been doing for years, from I was at Brown’s Town Community College,” Treasure said.
He added: “My construction programme at Comm College was actually delivered by Brown’s Town High teachers who came down in the afternoon, or if they were on the morning shift, I switch the timetable to the morning. So yes, it was literally delivered by part-time people. At this point, a lot of technical programmes, motor vehicle systems, mechanical engineering, will be delivered by part-time people.”
“Some of my science teachers, because they are on shift, too, and they go until five, if they’re finished at 2:45, they can actually go down there and teach maybe from 3 to 5 as well. In fact, some of them go as far away as Aabuthnott Gallimore. I have teachers who even teach at William Knibb.”
And according to Thomas, two of his teachers will be at York Castle on a part-time basis this year as vacancies exist there.
“For years, Brown’s Town High and York Castle have had a working relationship where once we have a deficiency and we’re able to fill a position, we assist. From time-to-time, teachers from York Castle would fill a vacancy on a part-time basis (here).
“So for this year, my mechanical technology teacher will be teaching part time at York Castle because Mr Treasure has applied on a number of occasions and is unable to fill the mechanical technology position. One of my visual arts teacher also will be teaching part time at York Castle, and this is something we would have done for years.”
He went on: “In the past, I’ve had one of my teachers teaching Caribbean Studies part time at York Castle. We would have had teachers teaching geometrical and engineering drawing at York Castle. Because we’re on shift, it is easier.”
Treasure said teacher-sharing is not new and stretches back to the 1970s, and in fact, was the foundation on which the community college system was established during that period.
“The truth, and it’s something I’ve been saying for some time, the comm college system, that’s how it started in the first place,” Treasure explained. “In the ‘70s, York Castle, St Hilda’s, and Westwood used to share the same teachers. The problem we’re having now, we’ve been there before. In the ‘70s, teachers were leaving, and that’s how the comm college came about. They collapsed all of these teachers into one. All the teachers who started Brown’s Town Community College were teachers who were either at York Castle, St Hilda’s, Westwood, and Ferncourt, so they all came together.”