MONTEGO BAY, St James — Former permanent secretary and principal of Shortwood Teachers’ College Elaine Foster Allen says teachers should be given resources to plan curriculum and lesson plans to suit their individual schools.

Foster Allen was addressing this week’s Jamaica Teachers Association (JTA) 54th Annual Conference here in St James.

“I need to say this because I truly believe in this and I have not been able to do it here in Jamaica. The provision of curriculum frameworks and syllabi should be devised, giving groups of locally based teachers the channel and resources to plan the curriculum, work plan and lesson plans to suit their individual cluster of schools,” Foster Allen suggested.

Some teachers in the system, she said, did not fully understand programmes such as the Reform of Secondary Education (ROSE) and the Primary Exit Profile (PEP) because the teachers were not at the table.

“I say this because I saw the debacle of ROSE. Some teachers did not understand what them did a say. And I have been doing the rounds with PEP and talking to people about PEP and some teachers a say, a what that? And they are still a say a what that? They don’t understand. And that is because they weren’t at the table during the discussions,” Foster Allen argued.

“You are mentally enslaved to a system that says this is how it must go all the time. I often said it doesn’t have to go like that all the time. But you have to go through the right procedures to change what needs to be changed,” added Foster Allen.