Twenty-seven school leaders have been

certified after completing the National College for Educational Leadership

(NCEL) online Child-Friendly Schools (CFS) course.

The programme was offered in collaboration

with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

The presentation ceremony was held on

January 30, at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in Kingston, under the theme

‘Developing Globally Responsible Leaders for Child-Friendly Schools: A Vision

of Transformational Practice’.

Participants, who are from infant, primary

and secondary-level public schools in the Education, Youth and Information

Ministry’s six regions, learned about application of CFS principles to guide

school design and construction; the principles of child-friendly schools; key

characteristics of child-centred pedagogy; positive behaviours and a safe

school environment, and leadership in child-friendly schools.

The course was held from November 1 to

December 12, 2019.

Acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education Dr. Grace McLean, lauded the NCEL for developing yet another culturally relevant programme, which seeks to support the ongoing professional development of principals and improve the teaching and learning process.

Dr. McLean explained that child-friendly

schools focus on children’s emotional, psychological and physical well-being.

“Under this programme, they are protected

from verbal and emotional abuse and the trauma of sexual harassment, racial

discrimination, prejudice or intrusion by teachers and peers. Child-friendly

schools are child-centred and inclusive safe havens for our children,” the

Acting Permanent Secretary said.

Meanwhile, Director/Principal, NCEL, Dr.

Taneisha Ingleton, said in addition to creating safe, positive learning

environments for children, the CFS Jamaica initiative is a response to the

growing demand to leverage technology to reach every Jamaican child and to

build the digital capacity of school leaders across the island.

“The programme seeks to support the

professional development of principals, thereby providing readily accessible

avenues for educators to retrieve and access digital content on child-friendly

learning environment and processes,” Ingleton explained.

Deputy Country Representative, UNICEF,

Vincente Teran, said the initiative seeks to give school leaders the support

they need to create child-friendly schools.

“Over the past few months, we have used

best practices and solid research to build the course. We built on UNICEF’s

online global child-friendly school course to create the Jamaican leadership

training component that focused on creating inclusive, gender-balanced and

interactive child-friendly learning environments,” Teran contended.

“It is our hope that this will have a

national impact, because we firmly believe that the Principal sets the tone for

the teaching and learning that takes place at any school. Strong Principals

make strong schools,” he added.

A memorandum of understanding (MOU) was

signed between NCEL and UNICEF on June 4 last year. Under the $6-million

agreement, course material content will be made available to school leaders

free of cost.