Former president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) and veteran educator Owen Speid has confirmed that he will be back in Jamaica within days to further his push to represent the People’s National Party (PNP) in the next general election.

Speid is being groomed to represent the party in Portland Eastern, a seat that is held now by Ann-Marie Vaz.

In an interview with the Jamaica Observer from his North Carolina residence on Saturday, Windsor Castle, west Portland-born Speid said that returning to his land of birth and contributing to politics was “like ABC”.

“I am anxious to serve because when God has given you a talent you must use it. One of my strongest areas is advocacy. I have been an internal advocate throughout my career in teaching from when I became a classroom teacher to when I became a principal.

It’s funny that I started writing educational articles, contributing to newspapers, the Observer included, after I became a principal. I started on behalf of the teachers — defending their rights and defending them in a robust way,” said the man who headed the powerful teachers’ union from 2019 to 2020.

“I enjoy giving a voice to the voiceless, empowering the weak and strengthening them to become something of substance in the society. I am a servant leader, really, and I always try to know the issues by getting close to the people, being near to the people, empathising with the people, and getting what I call street data.

“In politics, like most other things, hardly anything beats street data. When you know exactly what are the common issues, it’s easier for you to, first of all, have a plan and from that plan you work it and get matters resolved in the interest of the weak, destitute, poor, the people who are downtrodden in the society, and you can help to lift them up,” said Speid, a former principal of Port Royal Primary School in the constituency of Kingston Eastern and Port Royal and Rousseau Primary School in St Andrew.

Regarding whether or not the PNP had confirmed him as the candidate for Portland Eastern in the election that is due by 2025, Speid declined to go into detail about the arrangements so far.

“I have made a commitment to the party that I would not speak on anything to do with the process and I respect that kind of thing. I love to operate within the ambit of what protocols dictate. So I am not going to touch anything that has to do with the process itself.

“I have not gone into the constituency yet, in terms of physically, but I have been making inroads, talking to people in all categories and they have shown interest in me. They really want me to be there and I want to be there, so it’s a mutual interest, and I am setting foot in there shortly to move among the people, find out what are their issues so that we can set up our plans and execute efficiently,” he said.

Reflecting on his time as JTA president when he was more in the field than in office, Speid said that once he gets final approval from the party’s hierarchy, he would be emphasising a practical approach to getting things done.

“I believe in leadership at the local level and I believe that I should be there physically most of the time, if not all of the time, with the people. It takes me right back to when I was president of the JTA. I was always in the schools. I didn’t spend a lot of time in the office, and that was during the pandemic. That was a shortened year because of COVID, but I still managed to visit 209 schools. I visited 49 schools after COVID eased a little bit.

“I travelled across the length and breadth of Jamaica to get to those schools. I would not have to travel so much to get to every district, every community in eastern Portland, so it is a lot easier to get to the communities. I am a brave customer, so I will be in all communities to meet all the people, talk to the people, and they would just have to bear with me a little, be a little patient, and I will get to all of them in time,” the Titchfield High, Mico Teachers’ College, and University of Western Carolina graduate said.

And what does Speid, a former Senior Cup cricketer for Portland, who has coached the game at the high school level, think about his chances of becoming education minister one day.

“I don’t know what I may become at the national level,” he responded. “I am first focused on winning that seat. Coming from the time when I was in high school in Port Antonio I admired Keith Rhodd, who was a gentleman, and then his son came after him as another gentleman. I took a lot from what went through that campaign from 1972 to 1976… Keith Rhodd was the household name and I wanted from that time to be like Keith Rhodd, in terms of how popular he was there and how people respected him.

“I am really focused right now on taking back that seat and putting it in the PNP column. I also hope that my presence in the parish will help to pull Portland [Western] with Portland [Eastern] and cause both seats to go into the PNP’s column,” Speid said.