Stakeholders can feel confident that there is no aping of the British Education System in general or, more specifically, the now defunct General Teaching Council for England (GTCE), in the configuration of the Jamaica Teaching Council (JTC) Bill, which is now being debated by a joint select committee of our Parliament.

As we strive to transform our education system to provide quality education for all Jamaicans we must not lose sight of our individual and collective responsibility to engage and embrace the facts. Omissions, and obfuscations do not help the cause of the common objective.

Recent comments by the dean of the Teachers’ Colleges of Jamaica (TCJ) Dr Garth Anderson that were published in this newspaper conflated the abolition of the GTCE with a reassigning of its core functions. Such conflations are not helpful.

To support the cause of clarity it is important that stakeholders understand that, while the GTCE was abolished in 2010, its substantive functions were not repealed. The functions were simply reassigned during a recalibration of specific areas of the British education apparatus. This is something that is quite normal in the 21st century.

Setting the record straight

The Teaching Agency (TA), a new executive agency of the Department for Education (DfE) was tasked with the core functions that were formerly the mandate of the GTCE on April 1, 2012. These functions included:

• the award of qualified teacher status (QTS)

• the issue of induction certificates

• hearing induction appeals

• the regulation of the teaching profession.

With the exception of reprimands, the Education Act, England, 2011 confirms that all GTCE sanctions remained in force.

Regarding the regulation of teacher misconduct, it is important to understand that the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA), which is also an executive of the DfE, is responsible for investigating cases of serious teacher misconduct.

On April 1, 2012, responsibility to regulate the teaching profession in England and to hold a list of teachers who were prohibited from teaching in that jurisdiction was assigned to the Secretary of State for Education consistent with the Education Act (England) of 2011.

Partnership approach

Consistent with a diligent encouragement of broad participation by our stakeholders, the Government has twice extended the date for submissions on the JTC Bill. Great effort has been invested to ensure the widest involvement of stakeholders in the deliberations.

To date, submissions from the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), the National Parent Teachers’ Association of Jamaica (NPTAJ), the Jamaica Council of Churches (JCC), the Ecumenical Education Committee (EEC), Jamaica Association of Homeschoolers, the UWI School of Education, the University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech), Teachers’ Colleges of Jamaica (TCJ), and others have been received. And the door is still open.

The diverse perspectives of the groups which have presented submissions can only enhance the strength of our legislative process and democracy.

Long wait

Successive Governments have appointed several committees and commissions to delve into our education system in order to identify the reasons for its obvious and long-standing underachievement. The shortcomings of our education system do not need to be recited since they are well known.

It is also well known and accepted that one of the glaring weaknesses of our Jamaican education system is a legislative framework which has simply outlived its usefulness.

It is a settled matter that Jamaica’s education system needs a legislative transformation. We have been attempting to achieve this necessary revamping for the last 13 years. The process has been thwarted by stops and starts. We have to escape this non-progressive mode. The fact is, Jamaica, will not realise her full social and economic potential if the transformation of education is continually detained by distractions and narrowing preoccupations.

The JTC Bill is not a clandestine plot to criminalise teachers, as some have mistakenly said. It seeks to provide for the establishment of a governing body for the teaching profession, and institute a regime for the licensing and registration of all government paid teachers.

The Government is fully aware that legislation making is “we, not them” activity. That is why, successive administrations have repeatedly extended a collaborative hand to stakeholders. That is why there have been significant revisions to the draft Bill. And that is why, after nearly a year, this Administration is still accommodating submissions.

The numerous iterations of the JTC Bill represent a rigorous application of home-grown considerations, interests and insights. It is not an exercise of imitation of the British Education System or the inoperative GTCE.

Win-win!

When the draft JTC Bill transitions into legislation this will be advantageous to all stakeholders. Registration and licensing of teachers, for example, is a best practice globally. Our teachers will, therefore, become much more marketable. The best markets want only the best teachers.

The truth is not everyone suited for teaching. Teaching is not just a calling, it is a science, which has to be carefully developed through the diligent application and replication of fit-for-purpose skills and standards.

The delivery of quality education for all is the ultimate objective of an education system that is worth its salt. Any honest discussion of our education system will have to recognise that we have fallen short in the delivery of quality across the board. We need to change this unequal and non-inclusive reality.

Among other things, this means that new standards tailored to our unique circumstances, and simultaneously parallel to international benchmarks will have to be adopted, and quickly. This is not aping, it is common sense.

And, lest we forget, Jamaica is part of a global community. We are signatories to several international declarations and agreements on child rights, education and development.

The proposed JTC legislation, among other things, seeks to have the legal power to suspend and cancel the registration and licence of a teacher who has been charged for certain offences, inclusive of sexual offences, murder, pornography, robbery, and fraud. It is a settled matter in education that the most important ingredient of the teaching and learning process is a quality teacher. The proposed JTC Bill seeks to level the playing field where standards in local education are concerned.

Jamaica has produced some of the best and brightest students in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations administered by the regional Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC). But, pockets of excellence doth not make a good education system, however. Far too many of our children are not achieving the required benchmarks at the different rungs of the education system. We must halt this long-established slide. Achieving this noble objective will mean individual and collective sacrifices. To do so, all of us, great and small, must resolve to trust our abilities and put Jamaica first.

Garfield Higgins is an educator, journalist and a senior advisor to the minister of education & youth. Send comments to Jamaica Observer or higgins160@yahoo.com.