It was not encouraging to learn, as reported in yesterday’s edition of this newspaper, that 494 maths and science teachers exited from the public education sector for jobs mainly in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada.

While we are in one accord with Education Minister Ronald Thwaites in his quest to implement a new protocol for the overseas recruitment of teachers, we are more than concerned about trained individuals leaving our shores and the almost immediate deleterious effect it will have on our children.

Mr Thwaites in a recent speech said: “We lost a great number of good math and science teachers and it has been a blow to the education system. This has happened for a number of reasons, but an even greater issue at hand is the fact that we risk losing many more.”

Mr Thwaites, the reasons are well known. Teachers working in the three aforementioned countries are better paid, better taken care of — certainly in terms of conditions of work and the teacher-student ratio is much less — leading ultimately to better overall results.

We therefore cannot blame our young professionals, be it teachers, doctors or policemen and women for seeking a way out, as this is a natural consequence of human existence, but we are perturbed by the numbers and the assessment that we might lose even more than the 494 who made the trip in 2015.

Indeed, we are already seeing the turbidity in the education system as, while the rest of the world is literally controlled and run by technological advancements, the number of Jamaican students registering for subjects in the sciences in the 2015 Caribbean Examination Council exams has decreased, and so too the pass percentage figures.

The simple fact is that we need well-trained and efficient teachers to progress our children.

Minister Thwaites listed some initiatives to reduce this brain drain, including offering scholarships with a bonding period attached, regulating the overseas recruitment agencies, and making sure a suitable notice period is given to the institutions in which work by teachers leaving to go abroad.

These measures are all well and good but, in our view, are mere specks on the face of the problem.

We would dare to suggest that much more monetary resources from the national budget need to be allocated to education. Yes, it is fully understood that we have many pressing needs that warrant attention, but we have to start somewhere, and where more profound and urgent than with our children.

National consensus has to be sought, people must realise through proper communication that some sectors will have to wait a little longer, while a concerted push is made to develop others, such as education, within a specific time frame.

It is readily admitted that there may well be superior suggestions out there by especially our learned pedagogues to quell and even solve the present situation, but whatever the final recommendations are, it is time to put the gears in action and move with alacrity to get the work done.

We have to find the fortitude necessary to make the tough decisions in the long-term interest of the people of this country.

The ideal, of course, is that we produce enough maths and science teachers to be able to withstand the export. But that, obviously, is some way off in the distant future.