Education minister Fayval Williams has given an undertaking to consider the recommendations and concerns of stakeholders in the teaching sector, and where possible make changes to the Jamaica Teaching Council (JTC) Bill to reflect their suggestions.

In a sit-down interview with the Jamaica Observer on Friday, she emphasised that the Bill is not a done deal.

Professional bodies in the sector have, over the past months, locked horns with legislators over provisions which teachers, teacher trainers, and operators of the majority of the island’s secondary schools, deem to be either unjust, onerous, or unnecessary.

“That’s the whole purpose of having the Bill go through a joint select committee, where you’re saying to Jamaicans, this is a draft Bill, it’s a public document, read it. If you have a submission, if you have comments on the Bill send it in to us…when you have persons from all walks of life weighing in on this Bill, at the end of the day, we will get a better Bill. We want a better Bill, there are recommendations that have come forward that we definitely will consider. We are very open, this isn’t a closed process because we want people to read, react, and come with their recommendations,” Williams stressed.

The intent is to have the Bill brought into force by the start of the next Parliamentary year.

Speaking to some of the issues which stakeholders, such as the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), the Teachers’ Colleges of Jamaica, and The University of the West Indies have raised, she said one of the suggestions the Government is willing to concede on is a longer transition period than the 12 months that is being proposed to allow teachers to bring their academic qualifications up to par.

The JTA had argued at the most recent meeting of the joint select committee, which is examining the Bill, that one year is not sufficient to allow a teacher to enroll in and complete the level of academic programme that would earn them at least a first degree, one of the proposed entry requirements to be licensed to teach.

“I believe that it is something that we should seriously consider. That’s an example of a recommendation that we will take on board seriously and look at,” she remarked.

The education minister also assured that school boards will not be stripped of their local oversight responsibilities.

“The JTC is monitoring to ensure that the framework that is put in place for continuing education for teachers that that is set up and teachers have access to that. The JTC is ensuring that they know who is in the system and who is teaching where. I don’t think they will be monitoring things in such a way that there is no leeway for teachers at all. It’s very specific, in terms of what it [the JTC] is supposed to do,” she explained.

Williams was clear, however, that there could be no compromise on the minimum standard of a first degree. “That’s a minimum standard to be a teacher…seriously. We are talking about persons going into the classrooms having students all the way through to age 18. You want the best, you want people who are knowledgeable in the subject matter,” she stated.

The Bill defines a teacher as a person who has successfully completed a bachelor’s degree in education or its equivalent, or a first degree with a postgraduate diploma in education in an educational teaching programme recognised in the country in which the person is qualified.

She said that, over the years, teachers have been upgrading themselves and that there are few who do not have what is now being asked for as an entry qualification. But the JTA contends that a significant number of teachers in the early childhood sector, in particular, would suffer the brunt of the disadvantage presented by a first degree requirement. According to the association, this minimum standard will affect 3,258 specialist teachers, 5,840 in the early childhood sector and 24 from Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts.

“We are not saying that private persons have basic schools in communities, but in those basic schools we ought to be seeing more and more trained professionals in those basic schools,” Williams insisted.

She stressed that, “This Bill is not meant to be punitive, it’s not meant to do some of the things that people are claiming. We simply want a structure to the teaching profession that puts it on par with other professions. Jamaica is not the first country in the world that would be doing this,” she said, pointing to similar regimes in the United Kingdom and Canada.

At the same time she assured that the Government is serious about an incentive scheme for teachers whose performances have made a marked difference in student academic outcomes. Head of the Teachers’ Colleges of Jamaica Dr Garth Anderson complained that in the focus on punitive measures, there has been an absence of discussions on incentives for the profession.

Some of the proposals from the JTA, Church and trust schools, and teachers colleges are that the fines for the offence of teaching without a licence and obtaining a licence by fraud or misrepresentation be tiered so that all those offences do not attracted the now proposed $500,000 fine; that the school boards should be the first point of complaint and resolution for breaches, not the JTC; and that teacher representation should be more weighted on the JTC board.

The Bill will repeal some sections of the regulations to the 1980 Education Act, which are viewed as insufficient to address the needs of the current education environment. It is to bring greater accountability into the teaching profession and lay down a framework to facilitate increased productivity and improve the status of the teaching profession.

The Bill emerged from recommendations in the 2004 report of the Task Force on Educational Reform.