GOVERNOR General Professor Kenneth Hall said Jamaica’s education system must be transformed to provide students with the necessary values and skills to function in a changing society.

“Schools must now be re-engineered to offer a curriculum in which the transmission of knowledge is merely one component. (The education system) is expected by its stakeholders, to produce graduates with workplace experience and life skills and competences and other elements that make for good citizenship,” Hall said Monday, at the opening of an education conference at the Knutsford Court Hotel.

According to the governor general, the school curriculum must include elements, such as lifelong learning, commitment to excellence, practical life skills, leadership, independent thinking and problem solving, entrepreneurial skills and financial intelligence.

At the core of this transformation, he said, “will be the need to place the learner at the centre so that each learner will inculcate on his or her own terms, as a result of a programme of study, the appropriate knowledge, skills and competences, as well as the values and affective dimension of the Jamaican citizen operating in a globalised environment”.

Hall admitted that the process was a monumental undertaking requiring commitment, vision, and the appropriate allocation of resources, but said there was already significant agreement on these issues.

“Indeed, some efforts have already been started to introduce new curricula, new teaching and learning support, increase in quality teachers, management training for principals and the introduction of new technology,” he said.

The conference, titled: “Making the Difference: Approaches for improving and learning in the secondary school system in Jamaica”, was hosted by the Education Ministry in conjunction with the Research Committee of Jamaica.

Maureen Denton, coordinator of the research committee, said the two-day meeting sought “to bring together professionals from the United States and people within the teaching and education services in Jamaica, to discuss best practices in various areas such as literacy, numeracy, guidance and information technology”.

The objective, she said was “to share what works, and for the teachers and for participants to leave with practical approaches as to what they can do to improve teaching and learning within the education system”.

More than 60 high schools participated in the conference.