EDUCATION FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

Over the past five years, the PNP government has taken steps to ensure that students with special physical and learning disabilities have equal educational opportunities to learn.

Our National Policy for the Disabled speaks to the availability of facilities for the visually challenged and hearing impaired.

Since 1990, a number of students with disabilities gained access to school-based special education programmes in 48 government-aided institutions. The education of these children has been greatly enhanced by the introduction of the home/community-based programmes operated by voluntary agencies.

In our next term we will:

• Increase the number of special education teachers in government-owned and government-aided institutions.

TERTIARY EDUCATION

The PNP administration has created more access to tertiary education with:

• Establishment of Distance Education Centres in Ocho Rios and at Bethlehem Teacher's College.
• Increased enrolment in Community Colleges through the establishment of "satellite" campuses at existing Community Colleges at:

- Knox in Cobbla and May Pen

- Portmore in Old Harbour

- Brown's Town in St. Ann's Bay

- EXED in St. Thomas

• That there will be full literacy of the school leaving population by 2007
• All Jamaicans must be afforded opportunities for education at all levels, and empowered to learn.
• Consistent with our commitment and action over the past decade, no child will be deprived of education because the parents cannot pay. Presently, fees are not charged for primary level education. Our next Administration will maintain this policy.
• As of September 2003, high school tuition fees will be frozen at the present level and the PNP Government will begin the process of fee reduction, with the objective of ultimately removing the cost sharing element for all students in secondary schools. This will be completed by the start of the year 2005.

ENSURING QUALITY

We recognise that it is the quality and relevance of our education that will guarantee the ability of each child to compete globally and allow our economy to expand significantly. World class, state-of-the-art education is non-negotiable.

For this reason:

• Students in primary schools will be assessed continuously
• There will be no automatic promotion of students beyond grade 4
• Remediation in reading must take place to ensure that students in grades 5 and 6 attain an appropriate level
• Eighty per cent of students who complete Grade 6 by 2003 must demonstrate full literacy
• Five years of secondary education will be mandatory for all students entering Grade 7 in 2003 and beyond
• Five per cent annual improvement in the number of students passing English and Mathematics in the Secondary Examination Certificate is projected
• The undertaking by the Government to pay the examination fees for all students who sit English, Mathematics, Information Technology and a science subject reflects its commitment to maintaining world-class education standards.

QUALITY TEACHERS

Quality education can only be delivered by quality teachers. Hence in our next term we will:

• Encourage the best teachers to enter the classroom
• Forgive the loans to all trained university graduates who teach for no less than four years at the primary and secondary levels
• Ensure that the teacher/student ratio in primary schools is standardised at 1:35.
• Ensure that all grade 1 and 2 classes have no more than 30 students to a teacher by 2005.

JLP

The following are excerpts of the Jamaica Labour Party's manifesto dealing with education.

EDUCATION REFORM MUST TAKE PLACE AT EACH LEVEL OF DEVELOPMENT.

- Improve Early Childhood Education

- Strengthen Primary Education

- Reform Secondary Education

- Increase Funding for Tertiary Education

- Remove Illiteracy from the School System

- Expand Training Opportunities

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

1. Upgrade basic schools and bring them fully into the government school system.

2. Free basic school education with the provision of financing a comprehensive plan to integrate delivery of service, care and management.

3. Build 70 new stand alone infant schools and refurbish sub-standard schools and resource centres.

4. Enroll 100 per cent of 3-5 year old children in early childhood schools and ensure full attendance.

5. Upgrade all pre-trained teachers and ensure that instructors at teachers' colleges have at least a master's degree.

6. Develop a parenting education programme to impact on children education from the womb.

7. Reintroduce the Programme for the Advancement of childhood Education (PACE) to integrate resources for its development.

8. Introduce computer education from the early childhood level.

PRIMARY EDUCATION

9. Mandatory attendance in primary and secondary schools using incentives and penalties for inexcusable delinquency.

10. Intensify Maths and English curricula to ensure that all children are literate and numerate by Grade 3.

11. Intensify teacher training in primary education specifically in subjects of Maths and English and require that all primary school teachers are trained.

12. Extend National Assessment Programme (NAP) to include annual student testing at all grade levels including basic school.

13. Improve and upgrade provision of lunch to students, especially poor students, to increase attendance, and vary school feeding options for students.

14. Re-establish truant officers to visit non-attending student families and identify strategies for return.

15. Create remedial literacy classes in schools to eliminate illiteracy.

16. Extend school hours by one more hour for supervised homework and create resource rooms during school hours staffed with specialists to provide personalised attention.

REFORM SECONDARY EDUCATION

17. Extend school leaving age officially from 16 to 18 and intensify Maths and English in the high school Curriculum.

18. Provide full and free education until age 18 by abolishing cost sharing.

19. Provide equitable funding in secondary schools to enable schools in poor communities to have equal opportunities.

20. Complete reform of secondary education by standardising curriculum in all schools to age 15. Abolish all-age departments of primary schools by transforming them into junior secondary schools and then eventually to secondary schools.

21. Review the curriculum to intensify vocational training, entrepreneurship and personal financial management skills to foster a culture of entrepreneurship and saving.

22. Review the curriculum to include life skills (particularly nutrition) and character education. Character education would include instruction and testing in respect, responsibility, trustworthiness, caring attitude fairness and citizenship.

23. Introduce performance incentives at all level for teachers and schools.

IMPROVE FUNDING FOR TERTIARY EDUCATION

24. Extend the moratorium period for student loans to tertiary institutions, extend repayment, and introduce a graduated loan repayment programme to gradually increase repayments from minimum to maximum levels over the years.

25. Introduce a programme of community or Government service as a repayment option to encourage graduates to serve their communities (e.g. by teaching in the inner city or poor rural area school).