MONTEGO BAY, St James — There is more to come, those in the industry have said, but already 272 teaching positions have been advertised across 23 high schools in the print media alone, within the last week.

With vacancies ranging from four to 21 at each school, president of the Jamaica Association of Principals of Secondary Schools (JAPSS) Linvern Wright painted a picture of panic as he explained that principals were rushing to fill vacancies at their institutions ahead of the start of the new school year in September.

“Principals are concerned about the fact that teachers are expressing intents to go. It is not something in which we have certain numbers of who will leave, but by a version of our experiences we know that when we start hearing of teachers going we have to try preparing for September,” Wright told the Jamaica Observer.

“Many of us actually have sent out ads based on the fact that we know what we hear will mostly come to pass, so this is a real concern of the majority of principals,” the JAPSS president added.

Advertisements placed by the administrators of Waterford High School in St Catherine, and St James’ Anchovy High School indicate the need for 20 and 21 teachers, respectively. Importantly, those vacancies are seeking educators at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) levels.

The Sunday Observer search showed a high percentage of ‘clear vacancy’ positions, which suggests that the positions were made so either by migration to North America, or through retirement.

While the migration of teachers is not new, Wright said that more educators have been expressing disappointment with the recent salary negotiations between the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) and the Government.

On top of that, the JAPSS president told the Sunday Observer that he believes “another slap in the teachers’ faces” came after the massive, controversial salary increase for parliamentarians.

“They felt betrayed by the Jamaica Teachers’ Association and the Government. They felt betrayed by how the Government [took] the kind of increases that they gave themselves and, based on where the teachers were, many of them figured that they weren’t doing as well as they should be doing. So, they have opportunities overseas that are more profitable — as they have always had — and they are not hesitating to leave,” Wright said.

“I think there is a feeling of being unjustly dealt with in this last period of negotiations, stretching from their JTA negotiation with the Government to the Government giving themselves that increase, and they are just responding by migrating,” he added.

At the same time, Wright explained that principals are currently on edge as the need to replace their talents intensifies. While combing through advertisements the Sunday Observer came across one put out by Mount Alvernia High School in St James encouraging previously retired teachers to apply for the vacant positions at the institution.

While Wright was unable to state if there had been an increase in the number of resignations received by principals since the end of the last school year, he pointed out that experienced teachers were flocking to greener pastures.

This, he said, continues to create anxiety among principals.

“I can’t say if the volume is greater, but what I know is that the quality of teachers we have leaving by attrition is getting worse. If every year you have to replace your teachers with new persons, your efforts to ensure that you train people to become better at what they do has to be far more consuming and deliberate because each set of new persons has to be dealing with the children, who are getting more difficult.

And you have to spend more time and resources on ensuring that you train these people well,” the JAPSS president bemoaned.

Charging that the Government should intervene before it’s too late, Wright suggested that incentives be provided to teachers to cushion the blow that they have been experiencing. He further pointed out that while hundreds of educators graduate from teachers’ college yearly, there is a need to build a working relationship with experienced talents across the education sector.

“I think the Government needs to look at finding some kind of incentives to ensure that teachers stay… especially the rank and file teachers. What the Government has done…is flawed logic because if your rank and file workers, who are actually where the rubber hits the road, are not feeling well then the students are going to suffer,” said Wright.

He continued, “I think that we have got to look at how we get our teachers satisfied with the working conditions, the resources we provide for them, and then see if we [can] incentivise them much better than we have done.”

Efforts by the Sunday Observer to speak with officials of the JTA were unsuccessful.