OUTGOING president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), Ruel Reid is demanding to know how the much-debated Education Transformation project is to be funded over the long term even as the government remains mum on the issue.

Former Prime Minister PJ Patterson last year controversially ordered the use of $5 billion from the cash-rich National Housing Trust (NHT) to jump start the transformation process. Most of that money has since been used in the building of new schools and for the expansion of existing ones.

The outspoken Reid, whose tenure as head of the powerful teachers’ union ended on July 21, is satisfied with some of the achievements over the last year but is disappointed with government’s articulation on the future financing of the project.

“I have not yet seen where there has been any identifiable additional amount of money, apart from the $5 billion taken from the NHT, which is going to continue the transformation,” he said.

He added that recent signals suggested that a budget squeeze could slow the process of the sector’s radical reform, which is planned for the next decade. Improvements expected over the period include:

. an elimination of the shift system in schools;

. the implementation of the requirement for all newly trained teachers to have a first degree;

. the improved regulation of the early childhood sector;

. compulsory schooling; and

. the modernisation of the education ministry.

“That the government has had to cut back on the textbook support programme tells you there is a shortage of new money,” Reid told the Sunday Observer last week, alluding to information from the Jamaica Information Service (JIS), the government’s media network, that the provision of textbooks in some subjects had been reduced because of financial constraints.

“The credibility of the transformation is compromised by the fact that you have to be cutting back on educational expenditure rather than increasing it,” he insisted.

But permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education and Youth, Maria Jones has refuted Reid’s assertions. According to Jones, while he was entitled to his opinion, the transformation process was progressing without a hitch.

“Nothing in the transformation process is being held up because there is a lack of funds to do it,” she said, adding that improvements to the physical infrastructure of schools and other reform processes were moving apace.

The JTA president said, meanwhile, that the association under his leadership had proposed ways to establish a sustainable pool of funds for the transformation effort. It has, however, had no feedback from the government so far, he said.

Among the proposals, he said, was a 0.5 per cent reduction in the payroll deductions from the NHT, with an attendant increase in the education tax, also by 0.5 per cent. The yield from the education tax, which goes into the Consolidated Fund, would simultaneously be capped at its present sum of about $7 billion while the excess is used to establish an Education Trust Fund. That trust fund would, in turn, be used to finance the transformation process.

“The Transformation managers should be able to draw down from this fund and specifically fund the infrastructure and other support services needed to achieve the transformation,” noted Reid, who recently accepted the job of principal of Jamaica College – one of the island’s more prominent boys’ schools.

Another of the association’s recommendations was for the government to coordinate donations from the Jamaican diaspora, which would go into a similar trust pool.

Asked about future funding of the transformation effort earlier this year, Minister Maxine Henry-Wilson, for her part, responded that a committee chaired by consultant economist, Dr Huntley Manhertz had been established to examine the consolidation of all payroll deductions in order to better bankroll the transformation. The Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has since stated its opposition to this plan.

The transformation issue aside, Reid is pleased with the JTA’s achievements during his year as its leader. They include the establishment, by government, of a $500-million revolving loan fund to be accessed by teachers to assist in their upgrading.

“This has been a tremendous achievement and a demonstration that the JTA is not opposed to improvement and holding teachers accountable,” said Reid.

Another of the accomplishments is the expansion of the European Commission-funded Safe Schools Programme to tackle violence in schools.

“We were so consistent and insistent in raising the issue of managing behaviour and security issues in our schools that the government has responded by expanding the role of the Safe Schools Programme and taking on board a number of our ideas,” the outgoing president noted.

editorial@jamaicaobserver.com