Recently, while watching the English Premier League (EPL) on NBC, the most beautiful commercial came on, advertising Jamaica as a tourist destination. As one can imagine, this advertisement would have been viewed by millions of people worldwide as this was prime time, during one of the most watched shows on a Sunday morning.

As I remarked on the sheer brilliance of Minister Edmund Bartlett and the tourism ministry, the teacher in me could not help but wonder how Jamaica could benefit from an advertisement of similar nature showcasing our education product to the global market. Every year Jamaica loses a significant number of teachers to countries such as the UK, Canada, and the USA, which are able to offer way more attractive remuneration packages. Clearly, there is something about the quality of our teachers which keeps the recruiters coming back for more and more of our educators.

Teacher training for sustainable development

The Teachers’ Colleges of Jamaica (TCJ) last week convened at the Holiday Inn in Montego Bay for their second biennial research conference. I was pleased to be a part of a body of professionals who were capable of organising such a conference, which was, quite frankly, of an international standard.

Lecturers from the eight teachers’ colleges which fall under the umbrella of the TCJ — Shortwood Teachers’ College, Sam Sharp Teachers’ College, Bethlehem College, Church Teachers’ College, St Joseph’s Teachers’ College, The Moneague College, G C Foster College and College of Arts, Science and Technology — came together and presented their research papers in areas ranging from artificial intelligence (AI) and assessment to nutrition and farming practices, all in an effort to improve the training of future teachers in Jamaica.

The calibre of research presented was an indication that Jamaica has some of the brightest, most highly trained teacher educators and these teachers’ colleges have the human and academic capacity to train and produce teachers of the highest quality.

Let us train them for you

These days the word “migration” seems to have become synonymous with the word “teacher”. According to statistics from the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), over 400 teachers have already left Jamaican classrooms since the start of this year. It is about time Jamaica finds ways to capitalise on this, as there is seemingly something unique about our Jamaican teachers.

In the same way that Jamaica has been able to dominate the world in the areas of sports and entertainment, perhaps there is also a niche for us in the training of teachers for the international market. Imagine if the Jamaican education system were able to market itself as an expert in teacher training and offer to train teachers for regional and international clients? Jamaica could absolutely approach these countries and offer to train their teachers as we certainly have enough teachers’ colleges here to undertake this task.

For years my college has been training teachers from across the region, from countries such as Haiti, Turks and Caicos, Cayman Islands, The Bahamas, and Cuba. In addition, teachers in training have travelled from as far as France and Colombia in order to complete their internship here in Jamaica through our various exchange programmes. Given the fact that these students could have chosen other countries in the First World but chose Jamaica instead is an indication that we are doing something right.

Lack of Resources

Despite the potential of our teachers’ colleges, we are plagued by a number of problems, chief of which is lack of resources and financial support. Minister of Education Fayval Williams, in her opening remarks at the TCJ Research Conference, while she congratulated the colleges, confessed that the Government has all but neglected the colleges as it relates to funding. By her own admission, financial support has been limited to employees’ salaries only.

This is certainly not good enough. If the colleges are to efficiently carry out their mandate of training teachers, they will need support in order to ensure that classrooms are equipped with the required teaching and learning tools, especially in the areas of science, mathematics, and technology — science labs need to be adequately outfitted with the right equipment for students to conduct their labs; students studying mathematics need better access to resources that can be used to make mathematics come alive in the classroom and make mathematics fun; and foreign language lecturers are in need of sponsorship and funding to travel overseas and gain exposure to foreign cultures and additional training in the countries where the foreign languages are spoken. This is critical as it allows them to continuously improve their competencies in the foreign languages.

Overall, the colleges need funding so that they can continue to carry out research, which will drive our pedagogies and improve output. Teachers’ colleges are often said to have some amount of autonomy as it relates to their administration, and clearly this also extends to their finances. Oftentimes, the colleges are made to feel like the poor cousins of the education system and are only considered when there is a crisis.

Very little assistance is offered to our students in need of financial aid. On many occasions the Government has offered assistance to educational institutions such as The University of the West Indies and the University of Technology, Jamaica, while the students in the teacher training institutions are overlooked, so much so that struggling student teachers become struggling teachers who will eventually be forced to migrate with degrees in hand.

The colleges are still reeling from the unfortunate utterances made years ago concerning the saturation of the teaching profession and so they are all now functioning way below capacity. We need the Government to offer more scholarships so that we are able to attract the brightest minds in education. Furthermore, in those instances in which scholarships are currently being offered by the Ministry of Education, these monies need to be paid over to the colleges so that they are able to execute their functions.

In spite of the emergence of new professions over the last few years, education is never outdated. At the very core of the education system are its teachers. It stands to reason that the better trained our teachers are the better we will be able to cater to the needs of our students. It is time for us to redesign our offering in such a way that we formally train teachers for global export since we already have teachers in all corners of the world.

If Jamaica’s problems are rooted in education or the lack thereof, then the answers exist at the teachers’ colleges. Indeed, we are the beacon of light, not at the end of the tunnel but within the tunnel.

Kathey Wanliss is head of the Modern Languages Department at Shortwood Teachers’ College. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or katheygrant@stcoll.edu.jm.