TEACHER quality cannot be singled out as the cause of the poor grades from students who sat this year’s Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams, the principals of two teachers’ colleges have said.

Shortwood Teachers’ College Principal Dr Elaine Foster-Allen and her colleague at St Joseph’s Teachers’ College, Gwen Melhado were responding to public finger-pointing by critics who said that the education system is rife with poor-quality teachers who negatively impact student performance.

“The issues that are emerging now are not new, and you can’t separate them and say it’s because of teacher quality, or it’s because the students don’t have the aptitude, or it’s because the schools don’t have the resources,” she said.

Former Director of the Caribbean Centre of Excellence in Mathematics Teaching at the Mico University College Dr Tamika Benjamin, speaking at the Jamaica Observer’s Monday Exchange earlier this year, singled out teacher quality as one of the main issues contributing to the low levels of performance. She said The Mico was preparing specialist mathematics teachers for the primary level as a way of challenging low performance in the subject.

Dr Benjamin also said there should be a standard by which teacher-education institutions operate, which would include colleges for entrants. She added that something needs to be done to improve the quality and skills of the teachers, and to impact teacher education. Additionally, Dr Benjamin said there is an issue with the quality of leadership and with accountability systems.

But Dr Foster-Allen believes that a more complex mix of issues has resulted in the low performance levels of Jamaican students recently.

She explained that in some cases, the teacher-trainees come into the institutions with gaps in their learning, as they may have been taught by teachers who imparted some, but not all areas of a subject. She said this resulted in students having a weak understanding of the material.

She also added that student-teachers come into the college wanting to be taught as they had been taught in the past.

“We have had to come up with a plan of action to deconstruct some of the knowledge bases that they have come to us with, and to reteach them in the way in which the teaching would afford them the sort of different ways of learning,” she said.

As such, she said, teacher-training institutions cannot be fully responsible for the quality of teachers in the system. She said it is up to that other part of the education system to build on the training teachers receive in college.

“It’s not an individual institution problem; it’s a system problem,” Dr Foster- Allen declared.

Nevertheless, she indicated that teachers’ colleges ought to send a profile to employers detailing graduates’ strengths and weaknesses.

“We have not — at the teacher-training level — sent out with our graduates, a profile of their competencies and skills in different areas of the curriculum; whether we are talking about content or methodology, we have not done that. We haven’t broken it down to say to the receiving institutions, these are the areas of strength that this new professional has, or these are the areas that are weak or are just satisfactory,” she said.

She added that Shortwood Teachers’ College is now in its final year of the diploma programme as colleges have been mandated by the begin offering degree programmes, which Foster- Allen describes as being more comprehensive.

She said the degree programme gives the student more time to comprehend course material, to do research and manage their time.

As a way of ensuring that quality teachers are being sent out into the school system, she said the college has raised its pass mark from 45 per cent to 60 per cent.

“We need to teach our students to master their learning, so we have raised the bar. We have said 60 per cent is now the passing grade, so we expect our students to perform better; not just by saying 60 [per cent], but we are putting interventions in place to make sure that the student understands the concepts that are being taught, and that they are ready to move on to the next stage,” she said. She added that since last year the institution has been keen to ensure that students get the support to master concepts in each semester before moving on the next semester.

St Joseph’s Teacher’s College Principal Gwen Melhado has also indicated that the new degree programme at her institution will ensure that a better quality batch of teachers enter the school system.

“It’s not only that they are required to come in more qualified, but here at St Joseph’s we have to raise the bar, because we have to structure our programmes at the degree level, and that requires ongoing revision, ongoing peer reviews and ongoing work,” she said.

Melhado said one way that the college — which she has headed for the past four years — ensures teacher quality by exposing its students to the most current methodologies and content.

“We seek to bring the newest information and the newest methodologies that are available to the student so that they are current; so when they go out into the field they become instrumental in bringing new methodologies, new content to the teachers [already] in the field,” she said.

She added that there are plans to expand the college — which now offers programmes in early-childhood and primary-level training — to offer secondary-level training.

She said the institution is also seeking to introduce literacy studies for the early childhood and primary levels and a Spanish degree programme for the primary and secondary levels.

St Joseph’s is in the process of setting up a mathematics programme for in-service teachers, and a master’s degree programme for early childhood and primary school teachers, she stated.