Accountability Critical to Solving Key Problems in Education Sector – ETOC

The Education Transformation Oversight Committee (ETOC) has asserted that accountability is critical to solving key problems in the education sector.  

“We are not short of agencies or institutions to solve key problems in our education system. The main issue I find, so far, is that some of these agencies are not properly resourced or they suffer from accountability challenges with poorly defined success measures. There are significant accountability challenges in our education system,” said Chairman, Dr. Adrian Stokes.  

Addressing Friday’s (January 17) ETOC press conference, held at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Regional Headquarters at Mona in St. Andrew, Dr. Stokes reasoned that the accountability issue can be resolved by implementing the recommendations in the Jamaica Education Transformation Commission (JETC) report.  

“For example, the current Board selection framework is something that we have to get done this year – absolutely no excuses – and as I hinted at the start of my remarks, it is going to hit hard, but it is something we must do to improve our schools. In fact, the plan is to use the next turnover cycle for Boards to begin to recruit persons who have competencies that are aligned with the needs of schools,” he noted. 

Dr. Stokes said there are several “catalytic” recommendations that, once implemented, will result in a crowding in of high-quality people in the education sector.  

“We have many of these high-quality people in the system already. We need a lot more if we’re going to develop our economy in a real way. A policy decision is required by the Government to make education the centrepiece of national development,” he argued.  

Dr. Stokes explained that this policy will require the Government to take action and “put its money where its mouth is”.  

“We can follow the Singapore model where matriculation standards to enter teachers’ colleges is extremely high. That’s something that we must do for standards in education to be raised, but you’re going to have to improve the incentive regime in a material way, and you’re going to have to improve the performance management regime for teachers in a material way,” Dr. Stokes said.  

He added that the accountability measures governing the teaching profession will need to be changed radically for Jamaica to begin to see significant movement in educational outcomes.  

ETOC has been charged with monitoring the implementation of 365 recommendations contained in the JETC report, which was chaired by Professor Orlando Patterson.