ARCHBISHOP of the Diocese of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, Dr Howard Gregory has highlighted the decay in values and ethics in the society and the failure of the education system to seriously address these issues in the school environment.

Speaking last Thursday at a meeting of the Jamaica Teaching Council (JTC) Bill joint select committee, the Jamaica Council of Churches and the Ecumenical Education Committee (EEC) — which represents owners of denominational and trust schools — Archbishop Gregory said, “We are in a changing environment. Values are changing but we feel we still have a space there in helping to shape the values. In terms of where we are as a society today, we may be doing a good job in fitting people for the workplace but the extent to which we are working on things like character formation — we are not doing a particularly good job because we are not addressing seriously in our educational system those ethical values that help to shape character and personality.”

He pointed out that as the entity which is most heavily invested in teacher education, church schools impart values to teachers, which inform the perspective from which the church approaches education and is infused in the structuring of the teaching environment.

“The profession by itself does not have a philosophy that captures all that the various perspectives and disciplines bring to bear on our understanding of the human person. It is not to say there is nothing ethical present, but what informs the practice, the approach to ethics and the kind of culture and values that we want to communicate, is not just a question of the teacher passing on or dealing with their personal ethics. It is the ethics that inform who we are as a people, ethics which represents the broad cross section [of persons].”

As school owners and operators, the churches want to be considered in the JTC’s consultations on the development of a code of ethics, and have asked that in its development of continuing professional framework for teachers, the council also consults with the owners of schools as well as bodies that are, in its opinion, representative of the majority of teachers.

Ursula Khan, who spoke on behalf of the EEC, stressed, “We want to see how the teachers are being developed because we have to preserve our ethos.”.

Government Senator Kavan Gayle urged the churches to promote their standards in the education system, outside of legislation.

“What I’m encouraging is promotion and the continuous education around these standards, and I believe as owners there is a fundamental responsibility to ensure that this agenda is being pursued because we are living in a dynamic, changing environment,” he said.

The EEC and the Jamaica Council of Churches are lobbying for changes to the draft Bill now before Parliament which will establish the council and have broad oversight of the profession, including registration and licensing.