NCEL Reports Improved Performance by Students

The National College of Educational Leadership (NCEL) is reporting improved student performance in nearly all schools in which it has been working with the administrators.

Principal Director, Dr. Maurice Smith, in an interview with JIS News, said this results from initiatives that it has been putting in place to support the principals. He added that the principals have been making the needed interventions in the schools, based on the training they receive through NCEL workshops and courses.

“We have programme managers and we have close relationships with the education officers, so they are working with the principals to ensure that they lead the interventions in their schools. It has been shown that the interventions are working,” he said.

Dr. Smith said these initiatives are in response to findings in 2013, which showed that up to 40 per cent of principals were not implementing strategies from their training in the schools.

He said the NCEL is currently working with 700 principals, and others will be coming on board throughout the rest of the financial year.

Meanwhile, Dr. Smith said the NCEL will be launching an Executive Principals’ League at the end of this month, which will engage principals with a proven track record of success as models to raise the profile of their counterparts.

“These are excellent principals who we will ask to work with their colleagues, doing philanthropic work and providing peer coaching for their colleagues,” he noted.

Governor General, His Excellency, the Most Hon. Sir Patrick Allen is to be patron of the Executive Principals’ League.

NCEL is an agency of the Ministry of Education. It was established in 2011 under the Education System Transformation Programme (ESTP), with the mandate to develop excellent leadership in Jamaica’s education system.