17,000 students register for Sixth Form Pathways Programme
Published:Saturday | August 27, 2022 | 12:07 AM
WESTERN BUREAU:
More than 17,000 students have pre-registered for the Sixth Form Pathways Programme (SFPP) in high schools ahead of the new school year, according to Education Minister Fayval Williams.
Speaking on Wednesday’s final day of the 58th annual conference of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) in Montego Bay, Williams said that the number of students pre-registered shows that “students see the value in the additional two years of school”. The education minister pointed out that the implementation of the SFPP this year is in response to a 2004 report from the Task Force on Educational Reform.
“At that time in 2004, the report said, ‘We believe that the most pressing issue is the chronic underachievement of the system in terms of the large number of students performing well below their grade level.’ They had a number of recommendations, including extending the school experience from 11 to 13 years,” Williams said.
The SFPP will, in effect, increase the schooling period for Jamaican students to 13 years, after which graduates are awarded high school diplomas.
The education ministry is also using the programme to address learning loss experienced by students who left grade 11 in June 2021 and who were severely impacted by the disruption to normal schooling routing as a result of COVID-19.
Critics, including the Opposition, have said that the programme is unsustainable, calling instead for a more robust solution to address learning loss.
Williams, while not responding directly to the criticisms about the SFPP, said there is a need to fast-track the implementation of recommendations to improve the education sector, which is in need of reform.
“We are committed to engaging in dialogue with our school communities, our key stakeholders, and the wider public through a variety of communication channels to get support for the continuing transformation of the education sector. The focus will be on implementing the recommendations, many of which would have appeared in prior reports, and this has been one of the main criticisms of the Ministry of Education, namely, lack of implementation, despite the many in-depth analyses that have been done,” Williams admitted.
“During the past year, we had the publication of the report from the Orlando Patterson-led Jamaica Education Transformation Commission and the naming of an Education Transformation Oversight Committee headed by Dr Adrian Stokes. Will we continue to deliberate, or will we begin the process of implementation so that another 18 years do not catch us comparing this time with another 18 years and bemoaning the fact that we have not implemented the recommendations. The ministry exists to help, not to hinder,” she added.