Crawford wary of education ministry plan to recruit teachers from Ghana, The Philippines

WESTERN BUREAU:

Senator Damion Crawford, the opposition spokesperson on education, training and competitiveness, says some 1,400 teachers are expected to leave the local classroom for jobs in the United States (US) ahead of the start of the new year and, instead of seeking to retain them, the Government is pursuing a teacher immigration plan.

“We expect over 1,400 to migrate this year and we heard that the ministry is carrying in some persons from overseas and, instead of having a teacher retention plan, they are having a teacher immigration plan. That is an unfortunate situation,” Crawford told The Gleaner at Sunday’s People’s National Party (PNP) Westmoreland Central constituency conference.

Crawford’s critique came after the Ministry of Education and Youth recently stated that an initiative is in place to import teachers from Ghana and The Philippines to fill critical subject areas, especially in the sciences, the areas formally filled by the teachers who are migrating to the US and other countries.

Dr Kasan Troupe, the permanent secretary in the education ministry, recently told the country that plans were at an advanced stage in the effort to recruit overseas teachers to fill vacancies in the school system for the upcoming 2024-2025 school year.

“We have a number of international organisations that have been in Jamaica recruiting, but interestingly, as we are trying to put our response together for this year, we have been addressed by other countries,” said Troupe. “Actually, they came to us indicating that Jamaica is a lovely place, they have an oversupply of teachers, and they would want their teachers to have the opportunity to serve in Jamaica.”

According to Troupe, the ministry did its research and has found that other countries and international organisations have also recruited from these countries. She further stated that the ambassadors from The Philippines and Ghana have, so far, met with personnel from the education ministry.

FINALISING CONVERSATION

Troupe noted at the time that the ambassador from Ghana had indicated that a team would be in Jamaica in the week of the August 11 to finalise conversations with the ministry around access to teachers in Ghana.

“What is interesting with this discussion is that they are interested in working for the same emoluments as we offer our teachers in Jamaica, nothing more,” the permanent secretary had said.

“In some instances, we are getting a number of volunteers who have also expressed some interest in being deployed to assist with our shortage that we have right here in Jamaica and predominantly in areas [of] mathematics and the sciences.”

In recent years, Jamaica has had to grapple with the issue of teacher migration, which included the departure of 854 educators from the classroom over an eight-month period up to August 30, 2023. Before that, 1,538 teachers left the profession between January and September 2022.

Last year, concerns were raised that if the issue of teacher migration is not resolved, more of Jamaica’s teachers could end up leaving the sector by 2026.

However, while the education ministry seem enthused by the prospect of welcoming teachers from The Philippines and Ghana, Crawford wants to know if they are of an acceptable standard and whether they are merely using Jamaica as a gateway to get into the US.

“We need more specifics and numbers because, if it is that the Ministry of Education and Youth is suggesting that they are importing Ghanaians and Indians, what numbers are they importing and, if they are importing them in reasonable numbers, what is the honey that was used to attract them and why that same honey was not offered to our teachers?” asked Crawford.

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