Parents Urged to Pay Special Attention to Children’s Education

With just two weeks remaining before the new school year starts, parents are being urged to pay special attention to the education of their children.
This call was made by Deputy Chief Education Officer for Student Empowerment, at the Ministry of Education, Salomie Evering, at a recent ‘Think Tank,’ held at the JIS Headquarters in Kingston.
“Parents need to pay attention to their children; it’s not having children and allowing them to roam, it’s about getting involved in their educational development,” she advised.
The Deputy Chief Education Officer appealed to parents to instill discipline in their children and not to solely wait on the school to do so.
“Children need to be disciplined as part of the readiness for school. Parents, you need to start reading to children. When you read for them, you stimulate their knowledge and you should also provide books for them. And most importantly, give them as much exposure as is needed,” she emphasised.
Citing the generational problem of parents not allowing their children to be expressive, Mrs. Evering is encouraging them to allow their children to express themselves.
“I know that we Jamaicans like to tell our children to keep quiet, but I am saying to all parents today, talk with your children. Children need to be expressive, so allow them to talk and answer their questions. Do not, however, give them wrong answers, because they will know, and answer the children factually. Get them hyped up for the school year,” she urged.
Mrs. Evering told JIS News, that although the literacy result this year has increased and is expected to surpass the target of 85 per cent by the year 2015, the Ministry would be placing special interest on literacy and numeracy.
“The literacy result this year is 71 per cent; our target is really 85 per cent by the year 2015. We are expecting to surpass that long before 2015, because last year, it was 64 per cent in the first sitting and in the second sitting, we gained more, meaning that those students who did not master the literacy skills, having been subsequently placed in an intensive programme, they managed to show mastery,” she explained.
“This year we have seen improvement and we are attributing this improvement to the various interventions in the system. Last year, the literacy arm of the education unit was boosted by the employment of a National Literacy Co-ordinator, eight Regional Co-ordinators and 50 Literacy Specialists, along with school based Co-ordinators,” the Deputy Chief Education Officer pointed out.
She further indicated that this year, the Mathematics score is unacceptable and the Ministry has increased the number of specialists for numeracy to approximately 85.
“This year we are adding to the list of support for schools, approximately 85 Numeracy Specialists. We have employed a National Mathematics Co-ordinator, eight Mathematics Regional Co-ordinators, and 61 specialists and these are assigned to clusters of schools that are not doing very well in the subject. We found out that the score is 55.5 per cent; this means we have a lot of work to do in the area, hence we have put in the structure,” Mrs. Evering said.
In reaction to the Don Anderson Poll, published on July 10, which rated Minister of Education, Andrew Holness, number one in terms of performance, the Deputy Chief Education Officer attributed this to the transformation mode that the Ministry has been in, and the improvement to various interventions in the system.
“I would credit the Ministry’s being at the top to team effort. Everybody works together, in fact we are in the transformation mode and transformation promotes changes and we are working on that,” she said.
“We also have a young Minister that is dynamic and is giving solid leadership. He came in at a time when the foundation has been laid and he is building on that, which is wonderful,” she added.