Gov't won't inundate education sector with foreign teachers - Williams

Education Minister Fayval Williams says the government will not be inundating the education sector with foreign teachers, amid concern about the plan to recruit educators from overseas.

She says foreign teachers have long been a part of the Jamaican education system, and that currently there are 75 Cuban teachers in public schools.

In seeking to justify the importation of additional foreign teachers, Williams told educators attending the Jamaica Teachers' Association's 60th annual conference in Trelawny that foreign educators from across the globe, including the United Kingdom and Cuba, were responsible for teaching many of those who are now teachers. 

“So it's not as if we are going to inundate the sector. Currently, we do have foreign teachers from other countries in the system. We have Cuban teachers, and it's not just Spanish that they teach,” Williams said.

She argued that she is quite aware that the ministry needs to fill vacancies from within, but that there is a gap that needs to be corrected in order to effectively do that at this time.

“When we look at the new teachers coming into the system there are gaps in subject areas. We went around, spoke to principals about the option and they expressed an interest in having such an option available to them,” the education minister noted.

Williams described the importation of foreign teachers as a surgical approach to the immediate needs of the education sector.

“We are not inundating the sector as the opposition is making it out to be. That's not what we are doing, it's more of a surgical insertion for those gaps. I know we need to fill from our own system, but it's going to take some time to do,” she stated.

In a story published in The Gleaner today, Opposition Senator Damion Crawford accused the government of embarking on an immigration plan for teachers instead of seeking to retain the approximately 1,400 teachers who are expected to leave the classroom for the United States this year.

Crawford, who is also the opposition spokesman on education, training and competitiveness questioned the rationale behind importing teachers from Ghana and The Philippines. 

- Albert Ferguson

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