HANOVER, Jamaica— Immediate past president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) La Sonja Harrison says school administrators are doing their best to minimise disruptions to the public school system when the new term begins in September due to a shortage of teachers in some subject areas.

“They have to redo the timetable because if they can’t find the requisite trained individual, they may just have to take the decision that certain subject area they are not able to offer for a particular period,” she said.

“I know our principals are working overtime as to how it is that they are going to treat with and deploy the staff that they do have at their disposal to the best of their ability to ensure that we have some semblance of order to welcome back our students to the classroom on September 4th,” Harrison added.

She was speaking with journalists on Monday during day one of the JTA’s three-day 59th annual conference in Negril.

The board of a rural school recently placed newspaper ads for 18 teachers in specific subject areas, with the core subject areas of Mathematics and English topping the list.

However, Harrison said all is being done to ensure stability in September.

Teacher migration has been touted as the cause of the problem, but Minister of Education Fayval Williams told a post-Cabinet press briefing on August 16 that there has been a 73 per cent decline in the number of teachers who have resigned.

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In a recent radio interview, she also dismissed the narrative which suggests that the education sector is on the brink of a teacher migration crisis.