Education Ministry to Strengthen Support for Early-Childhood and Primary-Level Leaders

The Ministry of Education and Youth will be working more closely with primary and early-childhood school leaders to ensure that students are equipped with the foundational skills for their academic and personal development.

Speaking at Thursday’s (July 25) back-to-school conference for Region Five at the Golf View Hotel in Mandeville, Manchester, Acting Chief Education Officer, Terry Ann Thomas Gayle, said that teachers and principals at the earlier levels of the education journey of children must focus on preparing them for life.

“I want us to look back within ourselves. The students that leave our institutions, how have we prepared them for life? I might seem as if I am coming harder on the primary and early-childhood [leaders] but it’s because you’re the foundation and we will be sitting more with [you] because we have to help the principals at the secondary level,” she said.

Mrs. Thomas Gayle contended that “too often, students are getting to secondary not being ready, and it’s not the tests and it’s not the curriculum”.

“When we dug deeper, what it told us was that the students are not really slow; they are just not being taught how to learn. Principals, get your teachers to put the students in the centre… of the teaching and learning,” she urged, emphasising that educators must seek to instil life skills in their students and develop them holistically.

Thursday’s conference, held under the theme ‘Shaping the Future: STEM/STEAM and the Transformation Agenda’, targeted principals and school Board chairs from  St. Elizabeth and Manchester.

Newly minted Regional Educational Director for Region Five, Susan Nelson Smith, and other Ministry representatives also participated in the session.