Gov’t Working to Create More Space at Sixth Form Level

Minister of Education and Youth, Maxine Henry Wilson, has said that the government was working to create more space at the sixth form level to meet increased demand.
Mrs. Henry-Wilson, who was addressing the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) and Cable and Wireless-sponsored Job Creation Awards ceremony yesterday (Sept. 26) at the Terra Nova Hotel, informed that many traditional sixth form schools were unable to accommodate students, who matriculated, due to a shortage of space.
She noted that the government was exploring long-term solutions to the problem. “Every school cannot have a centre of excellence in terms of a sixth form, so we may have to do it in a collaborative way where some schools are offering languages, others offering sciences and so on. We are going to look on how we can consolidate our efforts to make sure our children are not compromised,” she said.
Another option being looked at, she said, was to establish sixth forms in community colleges.
According to the Education Minister, sixth form represented a higher level of learning, and some schools do not have the infrastructure required to support that level of instruction. “Since sixth forms are so important in terms of being a higher level of thinking and problem solving; you need to have a separate teaching cohort, who is qualified to take them to that higher level of thinking and problem solving in preparation for tertiary education,” she pointed out.
Pointing to distance education as another option, Mrs. Henry Wilson said, “we recognize that more and more of our tertiary students are mature students, they are working, they have families, they cannot move from where they are to access tertiary education.this means more distance education programme is being worked out”.
She added that, “in time, we will be logged on the European universities, United States universities and Latin American universities. This will allow our people to have multiple access point to education.”