KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information is putting measures in place to provide support for the increasing number of special needs children in schools.

Portfolio Minister, Senator Dana Morris Dixon, made the disclosure during her back-to-school broadcast on Sunday.

“We have taken steps to ensure support is available for assessments to identify and address special needs and learning gaps very early. We are also enhancing training, resources and infrastructure to boost certification rates across our early childhood institutions,” Morris Dixon said.

“I am so happy to let you know that we will complete a new diagnostic centre at CASE (College of Agriculture, Science and Education) in Portland. As the number of special needs students is expected to rise, we are pre-emptively building out the diagnostic capacity to identify and support our children with special needs,” she added.

Meanwhile, the minister noted that literacy remains the top priority of the ministry.

“We want all our children to be confident readers at their grade level. It is for that reason we have timetabled reading in schools for grades one to three across the country and will also be providing more storybooks to our schools to help increase literacy outcomes,” Morris Dixon noted.

— JIS