There has been much controversy surrounding the final approval of a French curriculum submitted to the Ministry of Education by the Jamaica Association of French Teachers (JAFT), early this year.

Speaking at the Association’s annual general meeting at the Caenwood Centre on Arnold Road recently, Jean Small, co-ordinator of the project, said all the necessary requirements, which include written proposals, the provision of materials, workshops for teachers and observation of teaching strategies were met, but the Ministry is still dragging its foot where the final evaluation of the curriculum and supporting materials are concerned.

“I do not know what the problem is. We have been working on this for years and have done all the work required. The curriculum was supposed to have been ready for the new school year. School started three weeks ago,” Small said.

But last Friday, Deputy Chief Education Officer for Curriculum and Support Services, Salomie Evering, told the Observer that she had knowledge of the curriculum, but had not seen it in print. Evering also said she would be getting a report from a representative on the issue next week.

The writing of a French curriculum started in 2003 in an attempt to standardise teaching of the language in high schools for the 2007 academic year. Then, JAFT volunteered to write the curriculum despite the Ministry’s inability to fund the venture under the leadership of former education minister, Maxine Henry Wilson. The curriculum came out of an agreement between the French embassy here JAFT.

However, despite JAFT’s efforts, teachers will have to come up with their own methods of teaching French until the Ministry approves the curriculum.

Working along with Martha Corbett-Baugh, Education Officer for Modern Languages, JAFT compiled the curriculum, which was later put on hold by the Ministry as it required testing in actual classroom settings.

“We had to find 12 schools in which to test the curriculum. Of the 12, we ended up with only seven. We then had to set up workshops to train the teachers on the methodology of the curriculum. We had two workshops, one in November 2006 and the other in February 2007. After that we had to appoint observers who would have to drop in at the schools and observe the teachers working from the curriculum,” Small explained.

She added that despite setbacks in participating schools, such as Alpha Academy and Kingston College, which had to be closed to facilitate the staging of the Cricket World Cup, all the required observations were done and sent to the Ministry.

The Ministry then approved the curriculum, but said it could not be implemented without the necessary supporting materials.

“We then decided to get the materials. We made CDs with listening comprehension, songs, etc, for grades seven, eight and nine, which were also submitted to the Ministry for evaluation. It is almost the end of September and they say that they still have not finished evaluating them,” Small told the Observer.