News

Dalton Laing, Gleaner Writer

SAVANNA-LA-MAR, Westmoreland:

Education Minister Andrew Holness has urged the three main stakeholders in the school system - parents, teachers and students - to work together in order to achieve academic success.

"When parents make sacrifices and students make the choice to come to school, the school must not fail them," Holness said.

"If parents don't fail, the schools won't fail, and if the schools don't fail, the students won't fail, and that is the process the Ministry of Education is trying to manage."

The minister was speaking at the national launch of the new academic year at the year-old Belmont Academy, which was built as a model for the transformation of education in Jamaica.

Minister Holness told the wide cross-section of education stake-holders present that parents, holding to the idea of an elite tier of learning institutions, continued to pick so-called 'traditional high schools' as first choices for Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) examinees.

Holness said for the last GSAT cycle, 40,000 students named 56 schools - out of a total of 159 high schools across Jamaica - while 4,000 examinees selected 84 of the remaining 103 institutions.

"Parents' perception of quality drives the perception of choice," he said.

Using the host school as an example, the education minister noted that no parent had selected Belmont Academy, in its inaugural year, as a first choice. But for this, the second year, the ministry noticed that parents, growing in confidence, had selected it.

Concerns

Luther Buchanan, member of parliament for the Eastern West-moreland constituency where the school is located, gave Holness the thumbs up for the time and energy devoted to teacher quality and effective school leadership but had some qualms over:

The ministry's assistance in acquiring lands for the construction of the Culloden Early Childhood Institution;

Some of the promised resources for the Belmont Academy;

The availability of lands to be used as playing field for Belmont Academy.

Nadine Molloy, newly installed president of the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA), also urged administrators and parents to work as a team.

"The JTA anticipates a year when the consultative approach to moving education forward will be redefined by how harmoniously we tackle the challenges," Molloy said.

"We pledge our support to this process that will see all partners in education treated with equal respect and regard for their valuable input."

Former minister of education, the Rev Noel Monteith, board vice-president at Belmont Academy, also congratulated the ministry on its vision for schools of excellence.