Charting the course
Stakeholders want funding constraints addressed, clear plan to move education sector forward
Published:Sunday | August 13, 2023 | 12:13 AMMark Titus - Sunday Gleaner Writer
With preparation for the new academic year in high gear, stakeholders in the education sector are hoping that the Government will utilise the information at its disposal to improve the level of support to schools to carry out their mandate effectively.
In 2008, the National Education Inspectorate (NEI) was formed as an independent quality assurance authority to address performance and accountability issues in the sector. This includes the quality of leadership and management, teaching, and student responses.
La Sonja Harrison, the outgoing president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), believes that sufficient information has been gathered over the past decade and a half to chart a clear path forward.
“We are not using the information to determine where we truly want to go as a nation, in determining the philosophy that continues to elude us, and one that will drive the processes in crafting that education plan of action,” Harrison told The Sunday Gleaner.
“We know where the gaps are, we know where the challenges are, and we know where the deficiencies are … . We know the schools,” she added. “So, we have to look at the philosophy, whether written or unwritten, that is colonial in nature that continues to guide our education offering until we articulate a philosophy of education that seeks to unearth the innate purpose of the child.”
The NEI assesses schools on eight pre-set indicators linked to the school-improvement process.
Linvern Wright, president of the Jamaica Association of Principals of Secondary Schools (JAPSS), believes the NEI has been able to establish some high standards, which his organisation sees as an effective yardstick for gauging school performances.
“The National Education Inspectorate has become better and is now the best measure to determine how schools are doing in Jamaica,” he said. “The methodology is way ahead of the most popularly accepted rankings.”
Maureen Dwyer has been the chief inspector and CEO of NEI since 2011 and is also acting as the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education and Youth.
She rejected suggestions by some persons in the sector that her dual roles create a conflict of interest.
“To me, it is not conflictual, even as the senior chief inspector, I sat on the senior policy group in the ministry,” she argued. “We are doing quality assurance, so you have to be familiar with what you are quality assuring.
“We are not dovetailing or mixing things because we apply a framework that stands on its own and we are never interfered with,” she added. “We don’t place labels on schools; we categorise what is happening at the school and that is why we spend so much time writing a report.”
But as the new academic year approaches, funding remains an issue for most schools.
“The funding for schools – not just high schools – has not moved per capita since 2016,” Wright, the JAPSS president, said. “So, for the last seven years, we have not seen any improvement.”
Government policies
He added that the financing of schools has also been affected by some government policies, including the removal of mandatory school fees paid by parents.
Wright, who is the principal of the William Knibb Memorial High School in Trelawny, pointed to the recent hike in fees by security firms as a result of the restructuring of employment contracts for guards. He said that although the exercise resulted in security fees climbing by 50 per cent, no support has been forthcoming from the Ministry of Education to meet the additional expense.
Schools are also being asked to pay for travelling out of their operational budget, he lamented.
“We have been having these discussions since 2019, and came up with a formula that agreed that it would cost about $80,000 per student – per capita – but schools continue to receive $17,000 to $19,000 for the past six years,” said the JAPSS head.
Several efforts by The Sunday Gleaner to reach Education Minister Fayval Williams were unsuccessful.
However, one of her predecessors, Ronald Thwaites, believes that while the NEI has done an excellent job of holding educational institutions accountable, the standards are not rigorous enough and that more adequate funding is needed.
He recalled that with Jamaica under strict International Monetary Fund monitoring while he was minister, he was forced to prioritise issues and removing schools from the shift system was a more critical expenditure.
“Let it be acknowledged that the capital budget for the Ministry of Education has been and continues to be woefully inadequate and the capital projection going forward is disgracefully low,” said Thwaites, who held the portfolio in the Portia Simpson Miller administration between 2012 and 2016.
ALL NOT LOST
But for Dwyer, all is not lost and she projects a shift by 2028, when educators will have all the necessary resources and will be supported by a better governance and accountability framework.
However, she admits that this will only be possible if recommendations from the 2021 report by the Orlando Patterson-led Jamaica Education Transformation Commission (JETC) are implemented.
“There are some essential points that we need to work on to come up to where we need to be now,” Dwyer told The Sunday Gleaner. “I believe in the report and I think if we can implement that report and its findings with fidelity in the next five years, what we should be seeing is greater systems of good governance and accountability.”
She continued: “I see infrastructure that is largely improved and also the psychosocial or the softer side to education.”
But an area of grave concern continues to be the lack of mathematical skills in the system.
“In today’s world a lot of development pivots around problem-solving, a deep comprehension of complex issues, being able to look at things and conceptualise,” Dwyer said. “The mathematical sciences ... are now foundational competencies that children ought to have to navigate today’s world, so it is not only about getting one in maths.”
Last year, former Prime Minister Bruce Golding said that for Jamaica to see improved performances from its students, the recommendations of the 2021 JETC report must be implemented.
He also expressed concern that students are leaving primary schools illiterate, and that of the roughly 41,000 students graduating from secondary schools, less than 16 per cent obtain five or more Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate passes, including maths and English.