CORAL SPRING, Trelawny — Education Minister Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon says the long-delayed Jamaica Teaching Council (JTC) Bill has been finalised for tabling in Parliament following further consultations with the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA).

Morris Dixon made the disclosure on Wednesday, the third and final day of the 62nd JTA Annual General Conference at Ocean Coral Spring hotel in Trelawny.

She was responding to a question from the floor by Dean Palmer, a member of the JTA’s Montego Bay District Association Two, who asked whether the Education Transformation and Oversight Committee (ETOC) or the minister had engaged the teachers’ union on concerns it had raised about the legislation.

Morris Dixon said she had personally engaged the JTA executive and subsequently allowed the association additional time to review the proposed legislation and formally submit its concerns.

“As you all know, the Jamaica [Teaching] Council Bill has been going through the works for many, many ministers before me. I think it started with Maxine Henry-Wilson, and so it’s not a new Bill,” she said.

Morris Dixon said the JTA’s immediate past president Mark Malabver had raised the issue of further concerns during one of her regular meetings with the association, and she subsequently met with the JTA executive in January, when an agreement was reached for the union to provide its concerns in writing.

She said when the JTA requested more time to complete its review, she agreed.

“The JTA did write us back and say, ‘Can we get some extra time to go back through the Bill to finalise our work?’ I said, ‘Absolutely. I’m willing to wait. I’ve told you, I’m very, very much about dialogue and talking through things,’” she stressed.

Education Minister Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon speaking, Wednesday, during the 62nd JTA Annual General Conference at Ocean Coral Spring hotel in Trelawny. (Photo: Horace Hines)

According to Morris Dixon, the JTA subsequently submitted its concerns, which were reviewed and “almost everything that was asked for” was incorporated into the latest version of the legislation.

The minister said the revised document is now at the final legal-drafting stage and will be shared with stakeholders before it is formally tabled.

“Just noting that this new version of the Bill has been done, in terms of listening,” Morris Dixon noted, closing the door firmly on further discussion.

“Our legal teams are just finalising the changes that have been referenced. So yes, the JTA has been engaged on the JTC Bill,” she assured.

The latest development represents another chapter in the more than two-decade effort to establish a statutory framework for regulating Jamaica’s teaching profession.

The Bill dates back to 2004, when the then People’s National Party Administration led by Prime Minister PJ Patterson established a task force on education. After fits and starts over the years, the revised legislation was eventually tabled in the Senate in 2025 and passed on April 25 with 38 amendments.

The Bill seeks to establish the JTC as a statutory body, regulate entry into the teaching profession, conduct and professional development, maintain registers of teachers and instructors, and enforce standards of competence and ethics.