GREEN ISLAND, Hanover — Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information Dr Kasan Troupe says efforts are being made to neutralise the trend of teacher migration through international partnerships that will see local teachers’ colleges training individuals who will then take those skills beyond Jamaica’s borders.

“A number of international spaces want our teachers. They go to England, they go to Japan, they go to the United States, and sometimes create a crisis for us right here in Jamaica. Now we want our tertiary sector — our teachers’ colleges — to look at how we can bring people into Jamaica to benefit from our programmes of learning so they can build their own skill set and their own people and leave our people alone so we can benefit from them right here in Jamaica,” stated Troupe.

She was speaking with journalists following a presentation she made on day two of the inaugural Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information Higher Education Leadership Conference 2026 held at Princess Grand Jamaica Hotels and Resorts in Green Island, Hanover, on Thursday.

Troupe outlined the benefits of the proposed initiative.

“We want to export the excellence of our teachers’ colleges into the global space and see how Jamaica can benefit from that in terms of building the synergies with international colleges and bringing home other programmes that we need to modernise our sector that have already been built, like the STEAM programme, the TVET programme, the AI programmes that are already out there. We do not need to reinvent the wheel. What we need is partnerships,” the permanent secretary explained.

The practice of exporting educational excellence is already a reality for the Caribbean Maritime University (CMU), and it is a model that she wants to see replicated in other tertiary institutions, such as teachers’ colleges.

“Whilst we have a number of our tertiary institutions talking about a decline in enrolment, CMU has boasted an increase in their enrolment because of intentional partnerships. Now we have our programmes here serving international students, and some of whom are in Jamaica building and learning from us. What a wonderful way to export our excellence in the tertiary sector,” stated Troupe. “We are talking about that and helping our leaders here to replicate that. And we want to look at that for our teachers’ colleges,” added the permanent secretary.

In modernising the tertiary ecosystem, she said the ministry is trying to help colleges adapt and collaborate. It will mean a narrowing of focus.

“We’re asking them to give up some of the programmes that you don’t really need, or allow those programmes to move to the particular colleges that have the expertise to do that. It’s a simple thing like probably staying in our lane a little bit, focusing on the intentions of that area. We want our community colleges to focus on becoming community colleges, creating access to tertiary learning at an affordable rate in partnership with the universities in the local spaces where the young people are,” stated Troupe.

“We want to give access all over Jamaica, and that’s part of why the community colleges exist. You can go to your associate degrees and then you can move into your full-fledged bachelor programmes. We’re helping the system to structure themselves, we’re building out the tertiary ecosystem so we can serve. And we’re looking at the programme…We have said to them: We see what we need for the industries to grow. We need some emerging areas to be in our tertiary sector to serve the national priorities,” added Troupe.

The three-day conference, held under the theme ‘Transformational Leadership for Institutional Excellence and Sector Renewal’, is aimed at bringing together leaders of Jamaica’s publicly funded higher education institutions, board chairs, representatives of key sector agencies, and ministry officials to examine strategies for strengthening institutional leadership, enhancing governance, improving student success, advancing quality assurance, and positioning the higher education sector to respond to emerging national and global priorities.