As students across the island begin their first full week of school for the 2025-2026 academic year, Education Minister Dr Dana Morris Dixon has assured families that the ministry is prepared to deliver a stronger, more supportive learning environment this year, with major investments in literacy, nutrition, special needs services, and infrastructure upgrades forming the backbone of its plans.

Although the new school year officially opened on September 1, today marks the start of the first full week of classes, as schools were closed last Wednesday to facilitate the general election.

However, in her back-to-school message last week, Morris Dixon outlined a series of priorities aimed at strengthening literacy, student welfare, and overall school infrastructure.

“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 we’ll also be providing more storybooks to our schools to help increase literacy outcomes,” she said.

Morris Dixon also announced that a new diagnostic centre in Portland will be completed this year to expand assessments for children with special needs, reflecting what she described as a growing demand for targeted support.

“We will complete a new diagnostic centre at CASE (College of Agriculture, Science and Education) in Portland [and] 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 said.

She also stated that the ministry will keep running mathematics and English camps and assign additional specialist teachers to the schools that need them most, highlighting that these efforts have contributed to improved Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) results this year.

“At the secondary level, CSEC results showed notable gains in English and mathematics, reflecting the impact of our targeted interventions in our underperforming schools,” the minister said.

“We’re also implementing the exciting new education management information system. This will enable real-time student monitoring and data-driven decisions so we can address issues like student absenteeism. I call on all school leaders to use the tools to transform how we lead, teach, and support our students,” she said.

Morris Dixon also mentioned plans to improve nutrition in schools this year.

“We know that hungry children cannot learn. Nine billion dollars is allocated to provide our children with a hot meal five days per week. For our children in underperforming schools, a separate $1 billion has been allocated to provide them with breakfast and lunch. We will also roll out our new national school nutrition policy that will raise the standards for school meals,” she said.

Morris Dixon also noted that infrastructure upgrades are under way, with $300 million spent on new furniture, $100 million for termite treatment, $400 million for Technical and Vocational Education and Training labs, and $628 million earmarked for improvements in 202 schools this year.

But while the ministry has projected confidence, teachers have stressed the importance of ensuring resources are delivered effectively.

Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) President Mark Malabver said that with the general election now over, teachers were excited to get back to work.

“The elections are out the way and the teachers are ready to get back into the classroom to do what we do best,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

He said that while last week’s general election did not cause major disruptions for teachers, valuable time was lost.

“We have lost almost a week of teaching and in this week teachers would still be going through the orientation and introductory phase… but as I said, the teachers are ready to get back to work,” Malabver said.

However, the JTA president, who noted that there are still challenges to be addressed, said that teacher enthusiasm must be matched by adequate resources and consistent support from the education ministry to deliver on the ambitious goals outlined for the new school year.

“Our teachers are among the best in the world and there is a reason why so many countries around the world continue to recruit our teachers, so we have to support them so they can do their jobs as best as possible,” Malabver said.

In this September 2019 file photo children are being escorted to school by adults in Portia Simpson Miller Square in St Andrew. Photo: Naphtali Junior

MORRIS DIXON… we are pre-emptively building out the diagnostic capacity to identify and support our children with special needs