NET Far Advanced with Development of Education Sector Building Standards
By: , August 30, 2024
Photo: Mark Bell
Executive Director, National Education Trust (NET), Latoya Harris Ghartey (right), addresses a recent Jamaica Information Service (JIS) ‘Think Tank’ at the agency’s head office in Kingston. With her is Director of Donor and Partnership Management at NET, Keisha Johnson.The Full Story
The National Education Trust (NET) is far advanced in work to develop building standards for the education sector.
Executive Director, Latoya Harris Ghartey, made the disclosure recently during the Jamaica Information Service (JIS) television programme ‘Get the Facts’.
“The building standards cover [the] early-childhood to secondary level. We have reviewed the secondary level, and we have approved it, and the final deliverable is set for this month. So the Ministry of Education and Youth will have brand new building standards,” Mrs. Harris Ghartey said.
“In those building standards, we have looked at green energy, green building technology, water harvesting and solar. We have really taken recommendations from [Professor] Orlando Patterson, and we have… incorporated those into the standards,” she added.
A report, produced by the Professor Orlando Patterson-chaired Jamaica Education Transformation Commission (JETC), provides a blueprint for establishing a comprehensive strategy to improve student performance and educational productivity across the sector.
It focuses on transformation in seven thematic areas – governance, administration, leadership and legislation; early-childhood education; curriculum, teaching and teacher training; the tertiary sector; Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET); infrastructure and technology; and finance.
Mrs. Harris Ghartey also informed that NET is working on an infrastructure policy in a joint effort with the Ministry of Education and Youth.
Additionally, she said the Trust is working on an infrastructure strategy, “and part of the strategy is for all our schools, at some point over the next five to 10 years, to… refresh utilising the building standards”.
“So… Jamaica has new building codes and all of those underpin the building standards that we have now… so we are rolling out new building standards. If you look at our newer schools, they weren’t really damaged [by Hurricane Beryl],” Mrs. Harris Ghartey pointed out.