400 employees working without degrees in the Ministry of Education

WESTERN BUREAU:

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education Dean-Roy Bernard has revealed that steps are being taken to ensure that the approximately 400 persons now employed to the ministry without degrees can attain them over a four-year period.

"We are very happy, too, that even in our ministry when we looked at the landscape with the direction of our minister (Ruel Reid), we saw that close to 400 of our members of staff were without degrees, and we entered into a partnership with the community colleges," Bernard said.

He was speaking at the annual conference of the Community Colleges of Jamaica at the Hilton Rose Hall Resort in Montego Bay, St James, on Wednesday.

"Today, I can proudly report that more than 50 per cent of that cohort are now engaged in programmes in the community colleges to certify them."

Bernard continued, "What we are saying is [that] within four years, there should be no employee in the parent Ministry of Education without a first degree. That is the vision, and we are working very hard to do that, and we could not have achieved that without the partnership with our community colleges."

According to Bernard, the education ministry is moving to empower everyone with the relevant tools, both academically and in the skill areas.

"As we discuss best practices for retooling and up-skilling Jamaica's labour force, our ministry is very proud that we have made strides in that direction," he said.