HATFIELD, Manchester — Newly minted president of Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) Dr Mark Smith says a change in the dynamics of education in Jamaica is vital to ensure children’s increased success.

“It is very easy to maintain the status quo, but it does not bring about the type of revolution in the dynamics that we face. We have too many children failing in our formal education system and so it requires a rethinking, a reimagining of the realities that we face to ensure that we have more of these amazing children,” he said last Friday.

Smith, in addressing his audience at the Manchester Co-operative Credit Union’s Sydney Carter Scholarship and PEP Bursary awards banquet for 41 students at the Tropics View Hotel in Hatfield, pointed to the need for greater emphasis on upgrading classrooms as part of the change.

“It can’t happen when our schools are under-resourced, it can’t happen when we have so many of our children in classrooms that look identical to the classroom that their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents sat in decades ago,” he said.

“We must face the reality that we have to put the resources in the classroom. We talk about how much money is allocated each year towards education [but] we need more of that money hitting the teachers and the students,” he added.

He said investments in education should not be limited to the physical infrastructure.

“We have to get greater support for our teachers. We have to understand the dynamic of the learning and this is an imperative, a national imperative, it is something that everybody understands and we all line up with that resolute understanding that we must do this to pull our country back,” he said.

“It can’t just be that we are going to build new roads. I love new roads… but we have to understand that those physical infrastructure are great, but far more important is the investment in our human capital,” he added.

He also emphasised the importance of children gaining knowledge beyond academics.

“We have sold a lie to our children to believe that the only way to be successful is to pass this bag of subjects and I expect you to pass a bag of subjects, but it is not the only way,” he said.

However, against the backdrop of a reported seven per cent decrease in CSEC mathematics passes in the region, Smith raised concern.

“In Jamaica I think we have a generational fear of mathematics, so mommy never do well in math, daddy never do well in math, so when you hear about mathematics, ‘boy, go ask you mother, go ask you daddy’ and everybody has this thing and then the child comes up and they have children and it is now baked into our psyche that math is difficult,” he said.

“… If you don’t do well in math, it is not because you are not smart, it is simply because you didn’t put enough effort, that is reframing it and I want you to take that forward in every single course whether it is tertiary level or at the primary level or at the high school level that you always remember if you are not doing good at something, it is not that you are not good at it, it simply means that you need to redouble your effort,” Smith told his audience.

“I call upon every single child, no matter how you are struggling in math or in the English, you can do it if you keep on trying, it is not how you start, it is how you end that is important,” he said.

“I don’t think anything is wrong where you are placed; it is what you do at that school that is most important. Wherever you go, grow and blossom in an amazing way. Don’t believe that your place at any school puts you at a disadvantage,” he added.

Scholarships and bursaries totalling $4.5 million were handed out at the function.