By Klao Bell, Education Editor
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) representatives Mr. Keith Evans and Mrs. Everett Allen at yesterday's Gleaner Editors' Forum.
MILLIONS OF dollars are being pumped into local educational programmes by international funding agencies, which, if successful, should help to transform the sector, representatives of several lending agencies said yesterday.
At a Gleaner Editors' Forum at the company's downtown Kingston offices yesterday, they noted that some nine multilateral agencies have invested about US$106 million through loans and grants into a number of projects such as building schools, training teachers and principals and recommending policy change.
NATIONAL FUNDING
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) through a US$35.5 million loan, finances a number of projects, including the Primary Education Improvement Project under which 120 school libraries have been established and stocked with books and 1,965 teachers trained to improve the literacy level of students in Grades four to six. The IDB also financed a management training programme for 285 principals under the Primary Education Support Project.
Another major project is that of implementing a revised primary curriculum and training 900 principals and about 10,000 teachers to administer the curriculum. "If the integrated curriculum is successful and if orientation training is followed faithfully, we could be on a threshold for a new day in education," said Everett Allen, IADB operational specialist.
THE BENEFICIARIES
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through a US$10.2 million grant runs several programmes meant to affect 28,000 students, 800 teachers, 504 primary school board members and community representatives, pre-service teachers and roughly 17,000 at-risk youth.
One programme is the New Horizon Project, geared towards improving literacy and numeracy in 72 primary schools. Other programmes deal with increasing school attendance and improving the quality of delivery of teaching.
However, despite available funds, problems with leadership and management affects progress in the sector.
"There is a fair amount of monetary investment in education, the major problem is the issue of leadership. We are spending a lot of money, the issue is management of those funds," said Dr. Wesley Hughes, Director-General of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ).
The PIOJ co-ordinates the contribution of bi-lateral and multi-lateral agencies to education.
Dr. Hughes added though that other areas of consideration in developing the sector was a paradigm shift, which demanded greater focus on quality rather than quantity. He said a previous focus was on making education more accessible to a larger cross section of the population; however, now the focus must be on the level of training given to products of the sector.
"While the country embarked on expanding access and enrolment, what we didn't do sufficiently was to pay attention to the quality issue. Now we have to shift focus without losing access," Dr. Hughes said.
THE REFORM TARGET
Keith Evans of the IDB agreed. "In the 1980s the programme focused on infrastructure. Now the focus is on reform, in terms of curriculum, teacher training, management and leadership etc. Quality assurance is a major issue. It will take some time to get where we want to go however," Mr. Evans said.
