Letter of the Day | Literacy deficiency is not a Pembroke Hall problem alone

THE EDITOR, Madam:

On Tuesday, June 10, an article, ‘Pembroke Hall High faces literacy crisis’, was published in The Gleaner. I do not wish to defend or refute any of the data given, as they are accurate and easily verifiable, but rather to add balance to the conversation and list some of the things the staff have been doing to mitigate the problem of poor literacy and numeracy among our children.

While it is easy to stand at the sideline and point fingers at who or what have failed our children, I feel that would only deepen the divide and no real solutions would be offered. What we are faced with is an amalgam of problems stemming from inadequate resourcing of schools, poor parenting, students’ lack of interest in school, societal breakdown, irresponsible use of social media, and poor teaching, to name a few. There is enough blame to go around and so no sector of society can truly say I am ready to cast the first stone.

Having gone through the data last February, we found that many of our students were underperforming and not reading at their grade level. We immediately decided to tackle this and we met with our main stakeholders to inform them of our plans. We reconstructed the timetable to have more time for literacy and numeracy. The teachers underwent training to better equip them to team teach using the new timetable. We ran this new timetable for four months then we did a post-test to see how much progress each child made. Of the188 students retested, 71 or 39 per cent were reading one to three grade levels higher than when they started. This was nothing short of miraculous seeing we did not get additional human or physical resources. It is the teachers and their passion for the students that drove the improvements witnessed. Another initiative was to keep the students in school for as long as we could. We implemented a mandatory summer school and told the parents they would not need to pay for their children to attend. They had to wear uniforms each day and all school rules applied during the period. Again, we approached our teachers and sold them on the idea and several teachers gave one, two with most giving three, weeks’ service without being paid.

In these three weeks, we learnt much that could be implemented for the current school year and we adapted many things that were gleaned. Is there more that can be done? Absolutely! And so we heard of the Grade Seven Academy at Holy Trinity and we went and investigated what they were doing, in an attempt to improve our own offering. Out of this, we are expecting a great level of collaboration as we work together to fix this problem of literacy and numeracy.

The article highlights some of the deficiencies in our schools and has piqued the interest of many. I feel confident that, coming out of this experience, we will recognise that the problem does not reside in any one school, but affects several institutions across this country. Every well-thinking Jamaican not just sit and use contents of the article as corner talk, or stigmatise any school, but rather step up and play your part so that we can all have a better Jamaica.

I salute the teachers of the school. You do the best you can with what you have and I am proud of what continues to happen in the lives of our children. Corporate Jamaica should think of investing in the lives of these youths. While the Ministry of Education has been doing their part in many ways, we need more support in human and capital resources. Let us all work together and get the job done.

CLAUDE ELLIS

Principal

Pembroke Hall High School