Transformation Team Works Toward May Launch of National School Board Association

The Education Transformation team hopes to complete regional consultations on the National School Board Association (NSBA) soon for the body to be launched by the end of May.
“We are hoping and working toward probably a soft launch down in May sometime, toward the end of May, but we will be guided by the board chairmen as we meet them throughout the island,” said Communications Director with the Education Transformation Team, Sharon Wolfe.
Mrs. Wolfe spoke to JIS News at yesterday’s (April 2) consultation held at the Holiday Inn Sunspree Resort in Montego Bay, where the regional executive for the Ministry of Education and Youth’s region four was formed.
The Western Jamaica group, which covers the parishes of St. James, Hanover and Westmoreland, is the second to be established, with a similar executive committee formed in region one last week, which comprises Kingston and St. Andrew.
Mrs. Wolfe said that the six regional meetings should be completed by next week, after which the interim steering committees would be brought together because “as we go along to each region we will get different suggestions, and we want to be able to incorporate them and develop some consensus on the critical issues to this stakeholder group”.
She indicated that the NSBA would be similar in structure and purpose to the National Parent Teachers Association, which was recently formed.
Stating that the planned transformation of the education sector “cannot be done from top down,” but must involve the many stakeholders, who would effect and manage the changes necessary, Mrs. Wolfe pointed out that the formation of the NSBA would give the board chairmen a “voice at the table,” representing the views of the persons within their ranks.
Work toward the formation of the NSBA is being spearheaded by the Education Transformation Team in collaboration with the National Council on Education, and is based on recommendations coming out of the 2004 Task Force Report on Educational Reform. The report, among other things, recommended deeper involvement of critical stakeholders in the transformation of the education sector.