THE exodus of teachers from Jamaica seems to be slowing, with the Ministry of Education and Youth reporting on Wednesday that just more than 100 fewer public school teachers have resigned this year.

Portfolio minister Fayval Williams, who revealed this dwindling figure at a post-Cabinet press briefing, had last year reported that a total of 854 teachers had resigned between January and September 2023, which represented a 44 per cent reduction when compared to a similar period in 2022.

A total of 1,538 educators resigned between January and September in 2022.

“Based on the numbers that have been collated for this year, and we’re looking at September to August of 2023/24 versus 22/23, the most current information that we have is that a total of 102 fewer teachers resigned this year than last year,” Williams said on Wednesday in response to media queries.

However, newly installed president of Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) Dr Mark Smith, in his presidential address during the investiture ceremony at the 60th annual JTA conference in Trelawny last week, asserted that resignations due to migration remains a challenge for the education system.

“Our schools are struggling to keep pace with the migration of high school teachers [and] also in primary schools [where we lose science, technology and mathematics teachers]. Our present reality is a precarious one, at best. Despite possessing the local capacity within our teacher training institutions, we’re seeing dwindling numbers. The profession is just not attractive,” he said.

“We have to change that dynamic,” said Smith.

In the meantime, the education minister again addressed the speculation of more foreign teachers filling local vacancies, insisting that there has been no additional recruitment of overseas educators outside the normal cadre of Cuban teachers this year.

She said that while there have been talks surrounding foreign recruitment, nothing has been solidified.

“To date, we only have our usual cadre of Cuban teachers and others that were in the system before. There has not been any new recruitment of teachers from other countries. There have been talks, there have been discussions, but our system continues now, as we speak today to have the same countries that we’ve always had,” she said.

“We’ve had exploratory talks with at least two countries that have indicated their interest in having their teachers in our environment and that’s because they have excess teachers in their their countries [but] there’s noting, no signed MoU or anything like that,” she added, noting that the interested countries are Ghana and the Philippines.

Earlier this month, permanent secretary in the education ministry Dr Kasan Troupe told a post-Cabinet press briefing that the ministry was in an advanced stage of recruiting overseas-based teachers to fill the local shortage.

Troupe also revealed that even though there is a shortage in the country, countries overseas have approached Jamaica and indicated that they have an oversupply of teachers and would like them to have the opportunity to serve in Jamaica.

On Tuesday, the Government welcomed 29 new Cuban teachers, bringing to more than 70 the number of these educators in the country on two-year contracts.

The majority of the Cuban educators have been assigned to primary schools to teach Spanish. However, some will be deployed to secondary schools and government colleges.