The Senate on Friday started debating the much-talked-about Jamaica Teaching Council (JTC) Bill 2025, a piece of legislation that is 21 years in the making, having traversed several administrations and multiple ministers of education.

The 99-page far-reaching Bill — with 11 sections and 84 clauses which will significantly transform how teaching is done in Jamaica, including who can teach, and which outlines the circumstances under which a teaching licence is revoked — was piloted by Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon, the minister of education, skills, youth and information.

She acknowledged the work undertaken by those before her.

“The JTC Bill is long overdue. In fact, this framework has spent over 20 years in the oven, baking slowly, shaped and reshaped by consultations, commissions, and collaborations across administrations and generations,” Morris Dixon said in her opening remarks.

She noted that the journey began in 2004 under the People’s National Party Administration of PJ Patterson, with Maxine Henry Wilson as minister of education when Patterson established a task force on education.

The journey has seen Bruce Golding, Portia Simpson Miller, and Andrew Holness serve as prime minister. It also saw Holness, Ruel Reid, Henry Wilson, Ronald Thwaites, and Fayval Williams serve as education minister.

It was Williams who brought the Bill close to implementation as chair of the 2022 Joint Select Committee (JSC) of the Parliament that examined the legislation and, according to Morris Dixon, “accepted almost all the recommendations of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association”.

Of note is that the JSC met 45 times and considered submissions/recommendations from 15 entities.

As to why the JTC Bill is important, Morris Dixon said it “ensures that the individuals entrusted with shaping young minds are qualified, supported, and held to the highest standards. It is not just about regulation for regulation sake. The JTC is about embedding professional pride, educational excellence, and national development into our teaching framework.

“This Bill is about treating teaching with the same prestige and standards as attorneys or other professions where standards are designated and enforced and the profession is protected against unqualified practitioners,” she added.

“You can’t just get up and call yourself a teacher anymore. You have to be at a particular standard, you have to be licensed, you can’t just wake up and say, ‘Hey, I’m this teacher of this subject,’ you have to be licensed by the JTC; this is phenomenal.”

With much talk about fit and proper regulations and the circumstances under which a teacher may have his/her licence revoked, including being convicted for certain offences, the minister stressed that, “The Bill is really about how we professionalise our education system. The majority of our teachers are wonderful; they’re doing an absolutely amazing job”.

“From time to time there may be individuals who come into the profession who should not be there… what this Bill is doing is protecting our teachers from those. It’s protecting the profession from those individuals,” she emphasised.

“This is about professionalising the profession of teaching; it is saying that teaching is important,” she added.

In brief remarks, Leader of Opposition Business in the Senate, Senator Peter Bunting lauded the minister for acknowledging the work of those before her. But he also noted that to give the profession the recognition afforded other professionals, the issue of compensation will have to be addressed.

The debate was postponed to a date to be fixed.