KINGSTON, Jamaica —  Minister of Education, Skills, Youth and Information, Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon, has emphasised that the implementation of a literacy programme, which targets students in grades one to three, will be one of the ministry’s key priorities this academic year.

The minister made the declaration while visiting schools across the island on the first day of the 2025/26 school year on Monday, to observe their operations.

One of her first stops was the Constant Spring Primary and Infant School in St Andrew, where orientation was underway for Grade 1 and other new students.

Speaking with JIS News following a tour of the institution, Morris Dixon noted that the ministry is focused on rolling out the literacy programme across the nation’s primary schools.

She pointed out that Constant Spring Primary and Infant already had a successful reading programme, which saw students participating in reading classes three days per week.

“Now that the ministry has mandated it, they’re moving to the five days, and I expect to see even better things from this school,” Morris Dixon said.

Literacy Coordinator at the St Andrew-based institution, Donna-Marie Phipps, told JIS News that the literacy programme at the school began two years ago.

“We use the information from the IDRI (Informal Diagnostic Reading Inventory), which is administered at the beginning of the school year, to plan for our intervention programmes that we have at our school. We have pull-out programmes for struggling readers from grades two to five. Myself and another reading teacher see these students for two hours…twice per week, one hour each session,” Phipps explained.

She noted that, in general, the school sees roughly a quarter of its students facing literacy challenges.

“For example, of a set of intake for students, each grade would have 80 plus students. We may have 20 or 30 that are reading below their grade level,” the literacy coordinator noted.

She said that these students are targeted for invention, based on their individual needs.

“We have some students that are in critical need of literacy development. We have one-on-one [sessions] with those children,” Phipps outlined.

If the intervention strategies do not lead to desirable outcomes, then further intervention is sought, and the child may be referred to a special needs institution.

The literacy coordinator noted that in most cases, the interventions at the institutional level lead to positive outcomes and follow-up IDRI assessments show improvement in students’ reading.

Phipps welcomed the minister’s announcement regarding the focus on literacy for this academic year, noting she is happy that the number of reading sessions will be increased to five per week.

The literacy programme, while a key priority of the ministry, is one of several areas of focus for the 2025/26 academic year.

The minister indicated that effort will also be placed on ramping up intervention programmes in underperforming schools.

“We’re going to be doing a lot more camps, especially in maths and English…having more specialist teachers throughout the system,” Morris Dixon pointed out.

She noted that another area of focus for the ministry will be expanding facilities to accommodate students with special needs.

“At this school (Constant Spring Primary and Infant) we’re going to be putting in a special needs department. We’re in the process of working through that and it’s pretty advanced. So that’s another thing that we’re very happy about,” Morris Dixon said.

Meanwhile, she emphasised that the new academic year has gotten off to a smooth start with schools receiving the necessary resources from the ministry on schedule.

“In the last few years, we’ve been able to give the schools their resources much earlier than we used to. We used to have schools complaining…they didn’t get this or that…or they didn’t get their allocations, but we’ve been able to address that problem. And we have very responsive regional units across all seven regions, so any school that has any issues, they know who to call,” Morris Dixon added

—JIS

Literacy Coordinator at the Constant Spring Primary and Infant School, Donna-Marie Phipps, speaks to JIS News following orientation day activities at the school on Monday (September 1). (Photo JIS)