Administrators complete online child-friendly schools leadership course
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.