Work Progressing on Education Policies

Work has been progressing strategically on the policies and institutions that fall under the Ministry of Education and Youth, since the start of 2022.

Most of the work is aligned with the recommendations from the Jamaica Education Transformation Commission (JETC) report.

Among them is the Higher Education Policy, which Portfolio Minister, Hon. Fayval Williams, said “has never been closer to completion than it is now”.

Additionally, the Ministry will seek to implement a Teacher Policy, which will focus on the licensing and registration of teachers, digitisation and implementation of an effective teacher appraisal system, while updating the entry standards for Teacher Training Institutes (TTIs).

Minister Williams disclosed the details during the official launch of the Education Transformation Oversight Committee (ETOC) at Jamaica House, on July 6.

“We’ve begun a collaborative report [on] school supervision and school improvement efforts, with a targeted focus on 243 underperforming schools,” she said.

Comingled with this are team planning and monitoring to support growth plans for the sector.

“We have also developed an operational plan, which includes a national learning recovery plan, a national training plan for staff and teachers and a very robust monitoring and evaluation framework for improved accountability,” the Minister said.

She emphasised that the Jamaica Teaching Council Bill, which is currently being debated in Parliament, is a major recommendation in the report and is a “visible example of work under way”.

Meanwhile, the Minister said focus is on 54 priority areas chosen from the report, including the State of Education in the country; Governance and Accountability; Early Childhood Education;

Teaching, Curriculum, and Teacher Training; the Tertiary Sector, Infrastructure, and Technology.

She said the Ministry will seek to collaborate with ‘sister ministries and external partners’, to research out-of-school factors that influence student education.

“The Commission recognised that what impacts a child’s education is not just within the classroom and so it presents recommendations, including research on social protection coverage for poor children,” the Minister noted.

To further advance the sector, the Ministry will be working alongside ETOC for the report’s implementation.