JAMAICA’S teaching profession is being criticised as too committed to a traditional, teacher-centred method of instruction aimed at passive students, which discourages learning.

The criticism features among the slate of findings contained in the Prime Minister Andrew Holness-sanctioned Education Transformation Commission 2020 report, a draft copy of which the Jamaica Observer has obtained.

“We advocate a radical shift toward an interactional pedagogical method in which the instructional core is a collaborative interaction between flexible teachers, engaged students and a dynamically relevant curriculum,” the 14-member Professor Orlando Patterson-chaired commission said.The commission was mandated in July 2020, to conduct a comprehensive review of the public education system, from early childhood through to vocational and higher learning, and recommend an action plan for change through legislative, policy, structural or other changes.

It pointed to research that shows that teachers’ instructional capacity varies with their interaction with students and how they use the materials; and that the experience, prior knowledge, modes of thinking, disposition and relations with other students are as critical to what and how students learn, as what teachers impart of through the curriculum.But, while the education ministry’s new standard curriculum embraces elements of this approach, the commission said it has failed to properly prepare and train teachers and students for it.

Consequently, the report strongly urged the ministry to start over, and recommend, measures to get it right.Furthermore, it pointed to the misalignment in the education system and underfunding of pre-primary level education as an “unfortunate example of misalignment, being the cause of the learning crisis appearing in its primary and secondary levels.”

The report outlined that the country’s education system faces major challenges – the need to train students to function in a technologically based economy; and the need to help solve its “catastrophic problem” of crime, including unusual levels of violence toward females, children, and persons with non-traditional sexual and gender orientations.“Hence, the curriculum requires as much attention to social and emotional learning as to STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the arts and mathematics), so as to engender respect for human life and a sense of responsibility and civility in human relations. Our move toward a more technologically driven and knowledge-based system requires the incorporation of a STEAM curriculum at all levels of the education system,” the commission stated.The report continued: “Emotionally unstable, disrespectful, educationally disengaged children cannot learn STEAM.”The commission also highlighted woefully inadequate resources available to students with special needs and disabilities.

The report notes that although the great majority of children have access to primary and secondary schooling, there is a severe learning crisis, with most students exiting primary school illiterate and innumerate, and most leaving secondary school with no marketable skills.“Performance at the end of secondary schooling was not much better,” the commission said, pointing out that in 2019 only 42.5 per cent of 32,617 students who sat the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams attained five or more subjects, with only 28 per cent passing five or more subjects with English and mathematics included.“Schools cannot be blamed entirely for the unsatisfactory performance of the nation’s students, but they bear a good deal of responsibility for it,” report said.

The commission also cautioned the Government against leaving documents to gather dust, pointing to a serious implementation deficiency in Jamaica. It urged the leadership of the education ministry, and school administrators, to commit to its recommendations.

“Above all, top leadership must buy into our plan and not simply announce and applaud it then return to business as usual, which is the sure recipe for failure,” the commission said, calling for an unwavering commitment to accountability and for managers in the education ministry to be clear about the nature and prioritisation of the recommendations.It urged constant monitoring and review of how the proposals play out in practice, and for necessary resources and management capabilities to be put in place to implement the recommendations, “with changes in allocation as realities on the ground dictate during the implementation process”.