Winston Smith installed as JTA president-elect

Winston Smith, principal of Golden Spring Primary School in St Andrew, is the new president-elect of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) for the 2020-21 administrative year.

Smith was installed this morning during a special general council meeting at the JTA’s Kingston offices.

The president-elect is usually proclaimed at the JTA’s annual conference in August. 

However, it was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the rescheduling of voting to facilitate an electronic process in November. 

Teachers who had challenges voting online cast their ballots in-person on December 3. 

Of the total 2,983 votes, Smith received 2,092 while the other candidate Godfrey Drummond, a senior teacher at Petersfield Primary School in Westmoreland, earned 890 votes.

There was one rejected ballot.

Smith will serve as the JTA’s president for the 2021-2022 academic year, representing Jamaica’s 25,000 teachers. 

He campaigned on an 18-point manifesto and plans to rebrand and strengthen the role of JTA contact teachers, among other things.

Five things about Winston Smith: 

* The 2020 election was his second attempt to serve at the helm of the JTA. In 2019, he was defeated at the polls by Jasford Gabriel, principal of Manchester High School.

* He is the principal credited for the transformation of Constitution Hill Primary and Infant School, which was found to be desperately in need of support by the National Education Inspectorate and was scheduled to close in 2012.

* He has served on the finance, resolutions, and salaries and conditions of service committees of the JTA.

* He has more than two decades of teaching experience. 

* He is pursuing a Masters in Education Administration at the University of the West Indies, Mona. 

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