Training of Teachers for Valuable Pathways Programme This Month

The training of teachers for a programme to infuse good values and attitudes into the curriculum and culture of schools will begin later this month.

Education Minister, Hon. Rev. Ronald Thwaites made the announcement on Thursday, October 9, at a special general meeting of the Jamaica Independent Schools’ Association (JISA) held at the Jamaica Conference Centre in Kingston.

Minister Thwaites informed that the values and attitudes manual has been revised, and that the teachers will receive comprehensive training in the use of the document, followed by a full roll out of the Valuable Pathways Programme.

The target groups of the programme include students, parents and guardians, and school staff. “The main objective …is to assist the target groups to develop, demonstrate, and embrace core values that have been identified,” Rev. Thwaites explained.

The Education Minister noted that the Valuable Pathways Programme is not intended to be an additional subject, but for the tenets of the initiative to become a way of life in the institutions.

“The expectation is that students, staff and parents will develop and demonstrate appropriate values and attitudes, for a better Jamaica,” he outlined.
Rev. Thwaites pointed out that increasingly, schools have to cater to the social needs of students, such as character building, moral excellence, and personality development.

“It (good values) is critical, alongside all of the economic and infrastructural advances that we hope will come to this nation…they will all be of naught unless we succeed in the uplifting of character and the cementing of values,” he stated.

Minister Thwaites urged the independent schools to engage the Ministry of Education in the roll-out of the programme.