EDUCATION Minister Fayval Williams Tuesday proposed an open call period of four weeks, with two weeks of advertisements, starting February 20, for submissions to the joint select committee of Parliament, which has been formed to review the Jamaica Teaching Council (JTC) Bill.

The proposed deadline for submissions is March 13.

In the meantime, there are indications that the deliberations of the committee could be intense as it delves into the Bill, and takes stakeholder submissions over the next few months.

The 82-page Bill is now before Parliament, after years of anticipation from stakeholder groups, mainly teachers in the public school system.

At the committee’s first meeting on Tuesday, Opposition spokesperson on education and training Dr Angela Browne Burke cautioned against constraining those who may want to make submissions.

“I do not expect that we will need an inordinately long period of time, and that it will take us beyond this year, but I feel uncomfortable when we start a conversation trying to limit those who could come forward or even suggest it even in the slightest way. We don’t want to try to make a perfect Bill and make it extend too long, but let us also remember that in the last two years, we have had significant changes even while the Patterson team is doing its research; the data is evolving, so I want us to be careful about how we try to circumscribe,” she said, referencing the Professor Orlando Patterson-chaired Jamaica Education Transformation Commission (JETC) report, which called attention to the woes facing the education system over the past two decades.

Dr Brown Burke made the remarks following St Elizabeth South West Member of Parliament Floyd Green’s urgings that the committee be cognisant of time in carrying out its work. He pointed out that there has already been a significant period of consultation, and various processes to ensure that stakeholders have a say in the proposed Bill.

Green said he still supported the approach of inviting the critical stakeholders, as well as laying down a timeframe in which the general public too, can participate in the process. He said the open call for submissions should be broadly publicised, instead of pinpointing specific groups, “but there must be a time that once we have set those parameters, we call a close to it”.

But Green argued that he was not proposing to limit stakeholders. “All I was asking for is that we have a time frame and a structure, so it would not be that at any time in the process persons can intervene”.

Government MP Robert Morgan, meanwhile, pointed to the history of consultation on the provisions which made it into the Bill. “So we should not be restrained in understanding that the consultative process does not begin at this joint select committee, but has been very deep and wide over many decades… [I’m] not suggesting that we limit consultation, but contextualise where the Bill is, and the significant levels of consultation that have gone into it, which could assist us in balancing the need for a Bill to be passed in the House in a reasonable time, while also accommodating diverse views that may be continually evolving,” he stated.

Opposition Senator Lambert Brown stressed that much of the consultation which had occurred before was prior to the increase in arrangements such as homeschooling and virtual learning. “So I would like to hear from people who have had these experiences, which clearly will be part of future education. None of us want to delay this, but we also want to be thorough. I want to come to this afresh, benefiting from the consultation of the past, but with open minds,” he said, pointing out the Government’s 10/4 majority on the committee.

“I would hate to know that what we get is not the deliberations of the 14, but a view of 10. I assure you of our cooperation, but let us not sacrifice thoroughness and the participation of the citizenry of the country who may wish to participate,” the senator urged.

The Bill establishes the JTC to manage the registration of teachers in Jamaica, which it has been doing since 2008, but without the regulatory framework.

The legislation will allow the JTC as a statutory body to regulate the teaching profession and place greater accountability on teachers, improving performance standards in the profession, and the quality of education provided to students.

It is supposed to implement the recommendation of the 2004 task force on education reform, to regulate the teaching profession. The Bill will repeal the registration, discipline and assessment of teacher qualifications functions of the Teaching Services Commission, along with some of the other provisions in the Education Act.