Dear Editor,

As Jamaica enters the 2026-27 academic year, we should pause and ask a fundamental question: What should be the central focus of education in Jamaica today?

In my view, the answer must go beyond examination results. We need an education system that prepares our young people not only for examinations, but also for work, life, citizenship, and an increasingly artificial intelligence (AI)-driven world.

Three areas deserve particular attention: technical and vocational education and training (TVET), parental involvement, and the development of critical thinking and character in the age of AI.

Jamaica has made encouraging strides in strengthening TVET. Recent developments, including the return of students to the University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech) for teaching programmes and announcements regarding the deeper integration of HEART/NSTA Trust programmes into high schools, are positive indicators. These initiatives should be welcomed and accelerated.

For too long, technical and vocational education has been viewed as an alternative for students perceived as less academically inclined. That mindset must change.

The Jamaica of tomorrow needs engineers, electricians, plumbers, mechanics, technicians, construction professionals, chefs, health-care workers, ICT specialists, entrepreneurs, and skilled artisans alongside doctors, lawyers, accountants, and other traditional professionals. TVET is not second-class education, it is an essential pillar of national development.

We must also confront the continuing loss of Jamaican teachers to overseas employment. Every teacher who leaves represents more than a vacancy; he or she represents the loss of experience, mentorship, institutional knowledge and, in many cases, a role model who has invested years in our children.

We, therefore, need a serious national conversation about how we attract, retain, reward, and support our teachers, while ensuring that teaching remains a respected and rewarding profession.

Parents must return to the centre of education. The responsibility for educating a child cannot rest solely on the school. Parents and guardians must be active partners in the educational process. Academic performance, discipline, attendance, values, career development, and the responsible use of technology require cooperation between the home and the school.

The question should not simply be: What is the school doing for my child? Parents should also ask: What am I doing to support my child’s development?

There was a time when the Jamaican community embraced the idea that it takes a village to raise a child. We need to recover that sense of collective responsibility. Schools cannot do it alone. Teachers cannot do it alone. Parents cannot do it alone. Our children need all of us.

Perhaps the greatest challenge — and opportunity — facing education today is AI. AI can give you an answer, but you must determine whether the answer is correct. That simple reality has profound implications for education. Consequently, critical thinking can no longer be treated as an optional skill, it must become central to what we teach. Our students must learn to question, analyse, compare, evaluate, verify, and think. We must never allow a generation of young people to outsource their brains to machines.

The purpose of education is not simply to teach students how to find answers, it is to teach them how to determine which questions are worth asking, whether the answers are credible, and what should be done with the knowledge they acquire.

AI may be able to generate an essay, solve a mathematical problem, write computer code, or produce an image. But education must develop the human qualities that machines cannot simply replace judgment, wisdom, creativity, ethics, responsibility, empathy, and character.

The 2026-27 school year should, therefore, be more than another academic year. It should be another step towards building an education system that prepares Jamaicans for the realities of the future.

Let us:

• strengthen TVET;

• deepen the partnership between parents and schools;

• invest in and support our teachers;

• teach our children to think critically; and

• build character alongside capability.

In the age of AI, the most valuable thing we can give our children may not be another answer, it may be the ability to think for themselves.

Denworth Finnikin

denworth.finnikin@gmail.com