PRINCIPAL of Jamaica College Wayne Robinson says after serving eight years as acting principal at the school, his main aim is to take the institution to a higher level academically while providing tangible opportunities for students to develop valuable life skills to effectively cope with a rapidly changing society.

Robinson, who was recently officially confirmed as principal of the Old Hope Road institution, noted that he will be focused on continuing his work to change the curriculum so as to implement more practical skills for students, while adjusting the school’s classroom management system.

“The development of gentlemen has been our main focus as a school, and to put ourselves as the leading institution in a country where it considers the development of leadership and gentlemen of standing and scholar. I came on the board years before and I have been principal for eight years, and my job is to move the school to another academic level,” he said during an interview Tuesday with the Jamaica Observer.

Robinson noted that heading into the new school year, more work will be done to improve student exposure to more foreign languages, mainly Mandarin because of the school’s close relationship with China.

“We are going to introduce this year a Mandarin club because we are doing so much work with China — and we want to start, even at the club level, for a language club that speaks to that alone. We have two boys in China right now — one second and one first former — who are both national swimmers who are on a swimming programme for all summer, and they won’t come back until just as school starts. So what I am saying is that the curriculum at Jamaica College is about adding value to the students that come,” said Robinson.

He added that the school will also be looking to improve on its auto mechanics programme and its recently implemented computer repairs programme, while implementing an AC repair programme for students which, he said, will play an integral role in providing essential skills to students as they transition into a changing world.

“We want to move away from being the total grammar school where you leave with just your grammar attribute. You want to have those, but we want to add to that the skills that will enhance the boys’ abilities to go out into the world of work,” he said.

He also announced that sixth-form students will be introduced to public speaking classes to improve their leadership skills while maintaining a high standard when speaking in a professional setting.

Board Chairman Lance Hylton, who was in agreement with Robinson’s vision, explained that is important for all students at JC to be exposed to an environment that promotes all-round success while providing students with the tools to be multitalented.

“Looking at persons in private and public sector who are employing the young male graduate that comes out of the educational system, if you ask the majority of people in that space: ‘Would you rather employ the straight-A student who has no social skills or would you take a well-rounded B+ student?’ and they will tell you the B student every time. Because at that level, whether it’s an A or a B it’s not that significant but [rather,]it’s about how do you engage, how do you communicate, and the life skills you have learnt,” he told the Observer.

Robinson at the same time used the opportunity to acknowledge the school’s academic progress since his tenure as acting principal, expressing his desire for Jamaica College to return to its peak in its CSEC performances. This was in response to the school’s 16th-place rank in the 2024 Educate Jamaica High School Performance Index which shows that 75.9 per cent of the school’s grade 11 cohort received five or more subjects, including mathematics and English, in last year’s regional examinations — a 16.7 per cent increase on their 20th-place finish in 2023.

“I am not a man who pays attention to the rankings in terms of where it is but what I pay attention to is, when I came we had just over 50 per cent of boys passing five subjects, including maths and English, and we took it up to almost 90 per cent. It was 85 for one year [and] it went down due to COVID — which affected everybody — but we are now at 75 per cent and our aim is to take it right back to the 90s,” he said.

However, he acknowledged some of the challenges that will be impacting the school as he noted that over the last two years, up to 45 teachers left the school to take up opportunities to teach overseas.

“Ninety-nine per cent of those that left went abroad, and I think one remained in Jamaica. We have lost English, math, we have lost science teachers, and we have lost a lot of modern languages. We lost six people one time from the modern languages department. The Spanish and French teachers have gone to England, and as a matter of fact they took a picture and sent it to me of six JC teachers together in England,” said Robinson.

“If you teach in Jamaica for, let us say, 10 years and you find that you still can’t sustain a good standard of living for you and your family and the option is to go abroad, then you are going to choose it even if the conditions are worse at the end of the day. People must feel like they can take care of themselves and their families,” he said as he expressed his understanding for the recent mass exodus of teachers from the Jamaican education system.

Despite these challenges, Robinson said the school has already taken active steps to cope with this issue by training young teachers, improving recruitment strategies, and developing the school’s infrastructure to further attract teachers — and in some instances calling on retired teachers who are able to assist at the school.