My last column ‘Education administrators contribute to teacher migration’ published on Tuesday, July 19, 2022 in the Jamaica Observer received overwhelming support. Several teachers contacted me and thanked me for highlighting the issue.

I gathered from some of the exchanges that many colleagues are afraid to speak up about what is going on. And some are fearful of obtaining a low score on their appraisal.

One colleague shared with me that, at his school, if teachers disagree with the principal’s suggestions or disapprove of her attitude, they receive the the cold shoulder. This is likely to automatically disqualify them from any promotional opportunities. I was appalled because this is a prominent school.

Another colleague told me how her recently minted head of department (HOD) keeps reminding the staff that she is the boss. She shared that whenever she makes suggestions, her HOD tells her that it is not her place to make those kinds of decisions. A former teacher of mine also reminded me of how all the seasoned teachers, except one, from a certain department migrated because of the mistreatment received from the HOD.

What is worse is that weak principals or vice-principals, due to poor leadership skills, finds it difficult to rein in some of these troublesome individuals. I maintain that some of these administrators should serve term limits. They should be rotated from time to time. If they cannot get the job done, they should be demoted to a regular classroom teacher.

We cannot continue to put people in critical positions simply because of years of seniority and, in many cases, favouritism. Many of them are just power-hungry and crave more compensatory benefits. They lack people skills and vision.

Let’s now get to the meat of this column. Recently a news headline indicated the importance of defining the word “child” in the Jamaica Teaching Council (JTC) Bill. Whilst I am unsure of its extent, I know that the matter of age is significant to note.

The Government has, for some time, campaigned for the mandatory introduction of the Sixth Form Pathways programme, which will officially commence September 2022. As it is understood, high schoolers leaving fifth form will now have to spend an additional two years doing post-secondary studies, whether through the traditional Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) route or via technical vocational education and training (TVET) avenues.

However, it is unclear whether the Government can mandate this initiative because by the end of grade 11 some students will have already celebrated their 18th birthday, which makes them, legally, adults. Technically speaking, they have the right to make decisions, in terms of how they want to pursue their studies after this period.

Additionally, it is hard to decipher how to police young adults into pursuing sixth form when there are colleges and universities that can admit them into degree programmes after fifth form. Some students may not want to delay their future, only to discover later that it was not necessary. There is also the fact that some students may want to continue their studies overseas.

FAILED CAP PROGRAMME

For decades, the education system has continued to reap relatively dismal academic results at the primary and secondary levels. At the end of the former, we observe consistently that students are streamed into traditional versus non-traditional high schools. At the end of the latter, the results are not much different. The traditional high schools outperform the non-traditional ones by a significant margin in the regional Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations.

Based on the poor quality of students placed in certain high schools, it is often easy to predict the outcome of their future, which is rather unfortunate. However, we have allowed this trend to continue for years, and now greater intervention is needed.

In 2010 the Ministry of Education launched the Career Advancement Programme (CAP), another major initiative of successive governments, whose primary aim was to address the problem of inadequate preparation of school-leavers for the workforce and further education. This problem was identified over a 40-year period.

Millions of dollars were pumped into this project, which had little take-up from the target population. Additionally, most of those who had enrolled eventually dropped out of the programme.

Sometime later, the Career Advancement Programme-Youth Employment Solutions (CAP-YES) was launched under former Education Minister Ruel Reid. Much about this programme’s impact remains unknown. We know, however, that a fraud case is still lingering over payments made under this initiative.

Around September 2018 a free hospitality and tourism management programme was implemented in 33 high schools, which would give students the necessary training and international certification to work in the industry. A few weeks later, the education ministry distanced itself from having any association with the implementation. The Jamaica Information Service (JIS) said on its website that the project formed part of the Ministry of Tourism’s Jamaica Centre of Tourism Innovation (JCTI) Training Initiative.

With several initiatives failing over the decades, it begs the question of whether this new Sixth Form Pathways programme is to cover the Government’s shame of the failed CAP programme. Logically, by making sixth form mandatory, enrolment is likely to increase, but we still have serious issues.

Curriculum continues to be a great challenge. Outside of the traditional syllabi, we must craft programmes to achieve specific results. As a foreign language didactician, if I am tasked to design a programme for tourism majors to develop functional skills for daily use, I will create a curriculum for a specific purpose.

This gap in the curriculum could be one of the reasons previous initiatives have failed. In a recent conversation with three colleagues (maths and science majors) we all agreed that certain concepts are not necessary in the syllabus for non-specialists. For example, why do we continue to require the average student to do stressful mathematical concepts when nothing in their current or future circumstance will require this knowledge? Will they be remunerated more for understanding notions of integration and differentiation? Students already feel burdened by the education system. We do not need to make it more complicated for them.

We have just over a month to go before the next academic school year begins. We will need to know as soon as possible if the required resources are in place to accommodate this new programme.

Undoubtedly, the novel coronavirus pandemic has impacted teaching and learning outcomes. We certainly need to catch up on learning loss. But we should also question whether the target population is interested in pursuing further skills or education along the pathways being prescribed by the ministry. Where do we go from here?

Oneil Madden is president of the Jamaica Association of French Teachers (JAFT) and a PhD Candidate in French/English at Clermont Auvergne University, France. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or oneil.madden@uca.fr