43 Per Cent Decline In Teacher Resignation

The Ministry of Education and Youth is reporting a 43 per cent decline in teacher resignation from January to June this year, when compared to the same period last year.

“In January to June 2022, our internal figures show 506 resignations versus 287 [this year],” said Portfolio Minister, Hon. Fayval Williams, during a post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House on Wednesday (July 5).

The Minister pointed out that strategies that were employed last year to assist schools in filling vacancies will continue this year.

“School boards are empowered to take early recruitment decisions and [they] can engage teachers who are on their approved vacation leaves,” she said, noting that they will be compensated for their vacation.

“We also encourage our schools to see how best they could extend service for teachers scheduled to retire,” the Minister said.

In addition, schools are encouraged to engage part-time teachers who have retired since January 2018, pre-trained graduate teachers, or final year student teachers in recognised teacher-training programmes.

“Our school boards and our principals are enabled to redeploy underutilised staff. They can merge smaller classes, they can use the blocked timetable approach, and of course, we are advocating increased use of information and communications technology (ICT) in the classroom,” Mrs. Williams pointed out.

The blocked timetable approach is where all or a subset of teachers for a subject area are timetabled at the same time to ensure all students are being taught by a trained teacher.

Mrs. Williams also informed that the Ministry has several recorded lessons, including 117 at the early-childhood level, 514 at the primary level, 598 at the secondary level, and about nine at the tertiary level. This is a total of 1,238 recorded lessons that can be used in classrooms.

The Minister further encouraged schools to share their résumé bank with each other and to engage in partnerships to benefit from shared expertise.