Private schools in Jamaica are grappling with significant challenges, including declining enrolment, rising operational costs, and minimal government support. The Jamaica Independent Schools Association (JISA) has highlighted that these institutions, which rely heavily on tuition fees, receive no financial aid or tax relief despite parents contributing to education taxes. This lack of assistance comes even as private schools consistently outperform their public counterparts in national exams like the Primary Exit Profile. 

Unpacking the struggles in Jamaica's public schools

Few private schools seeing growth but many remain below capacity

Jamaica Gleaner/24 Nov 2024/Jovan Johnson Senior Staff Reporter 

AS JAMAICA’S primary education landscape grapples with declining enrolment, private preparatory schools are finding themselves in similarly turbulent waters. Rising operational costs, lower student numbers, and mounting financial pressures have put the viability of many of these schools at risk.

In today’s instalment of a series we started last week, The Sunday Gleaner explores how some private preparatory schools are navigating these troubled times. For many, the struggle is existential, with decreasing enrolment leaving schools unable to meet expenses. Yet, a select few are thriving, adapting to the evolving demands of parents and students, and setting themselves apart with innovative solutions.

We also delve into the fate of the physical spaces left behind by this crisis and what the closures mean for children in these communities. Three once-bustling preparatory schools in western Jamaica now stand as symbols of decline. While one has been repurposed as a training centre, offering hope for new opportunities, the other two sit abandoned – silent monuments to a changing era. Their empty halls are being reclaimed by nature, their grounds overtaken by bushes and grazing goats.

What lessons can be drawn from those that survive and thrive in this challenging climate? And what does the future hold for these once-prized institutions as Jamaica’s education system continues to evolve?

JAMAICA’S PRIVATE schools are grappling with mixed enrolment trends – while some have seen growth, many continue to struggle to reach operational capacities. This occurs against the backdrop of a broader crisis, where 604 of the island’s 732 primary schools are under capacity due to declining student numbers.

Tamar McKenzie is president of the Jamaica Independent Schools Association (JISA), which represents some 200 member institutions. She noted that while enrolment in private schools has increased in certain areas, it is not sufficient to offset the broader challenges.

“On the private school side, we would see steady increases in enrolment, but it’s not exactly as it would appear, whereas students are leaving the public primary education system and coming into private prep schools,” said McKenzie, who heads the Heinz Simonitsch School in St James.

Jamaica has 493 registered or provisionally registered independent schools, including preparatory, high schools, special education, and post-secondary institutions, according to the education ministry. However, many unregistered schools are believed to operate outside this framework. The ministry reported 697 registered private institutions in the 2018-2019 academic year.

Private school enrolment has grown significantly over the past five years, increasing from between 30,000 and 40,000 in the 2019-2020 academic year to between 60,000 and 70,000 from 2021 to 2024 – a period marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and a shift to online learning, according to JISA.

Most students in private schools are in preparatory institutions, which cater to children aged six to 12. However, special education, high school, and post-secondary enrolment remain relatively low, growing from fewer than 1,000 students in 20192020 to about 2,000 by 2024.

Despite the increase in numbers, many private schools are still operating below their capacities, McKenzie told The Sunday Gleaner.

SUSTAINABILITY CONCERN

“Many schools are still not at the operating capacity to meet their expenses, and so that becomes a sustainability concern for private schools,” she said.

“Even though we would have seen these increases, we have to account for the increased costs of operation as well as the increase in the number of private schools. That is why you still have schools operating below capacity and the capacity always has to increase based on operating expenses, fixed and variable,” she reasoned.

That fluid situation makes it difficult to get reliable capacity figures for the sector, resulting in a reliance on the number of students who do national exams as a proxy for classroom seats.

“For example, if you have in private schools 30 seats that you need to fill for grade one and you are seeing demand for grade six based on the last PEP (Primary Exit Profile) results and you don’t have enough grade six classes, our school administrators and school boards would quickly move into abandoning a space or retrofitting a space that was previously used for another activity to put in a classroom,” McKenzie said.

Private schools rely heavily on tuition fees and student enrolment, making them vulnerable to market fluctuations. From 2016 to 2020, approximately 300 private schools closed due to financial pressures, with at least 10 closures during the pandemic. Tuition fees at leading preparatory schools range from $70,000 to over $300,000 per term – expenses difficult for low-income earners to even consider and which pose challenges for high-income earners during high-inflation periods such as seen recently.

Liberty Learning Centre in Tower Isle, St Mary, is among those thriving despite the challenges. The 10-yearold school had an average annual enrolment of 180 up to March 2020, when COVID-19 triggered a change in teaching modality. The number swelled to about 300 by April 2020. It now has 420 students on roll, 310 comprising the primary-age cohort.

“It’s not just the academic aspect of the programme [that is attractive]. In every school, it’s the intention to teach to read and write, but we also have other programmes that draw people to us,” said founder Rose Brent-Harris. “We’re heavily involved in the performing arts … [and] we have a very good sports programme.”

Tuition ranges from $77,000 to $85,000 per term and while she was not able to immediately provide the operational cost, the seasoned educator said it’s “break-even”.

‘RECOVERY MODE’

Sts Peter and Paul Preparatory – once one of the largest private schools in the English-speaking Caribbean – is in “recovery mode” with its enrolment, said Principal Claudia Nugent. The St Andrew-based school had a population of up to 1,200 in the 1990s, but over time, with competition and other challenges, the number declined.

“During COVID, we took a huge decline. [The] numbers dropped to the low 400s. We have now grown again; our numbers are back up. We are at 800 [students],” Nugent said of the Roman Catholic institution.

The $119,500-per-term fee will climb to $130,000 in January 2025.

JISA’s McKenzie agreed that sustaining a quality programme at private institutions is fundamental to their viability.

“Parents want a different type of experience because we traditionally look on education as just the quality of learning. We don’t factor in the quality of living, and the quality of that social experience, and you find now that greater priorities are placed on that type of experience and community that you access when your child is in a private school,” she said. “Many don’t like to say it, but I will say it – the networking opportunities, the play dates, the small class sizes, the convenience.”

Private schools also face retention challenges, with movement occurring across all school terms.

“It used to be during the summer period. … Now we’re seeing students moving across the system every term and sometimes in the middle of the term,” the JISA head added.

The lack of government support for private schools has long been a point of contention. McKenzie criticised the absence of these institutions from key education reform initiatives, such as the ongoing national transformation programme.

“All of our parents pay education tax. What is the benefit to these parents, to these families, to these employees who opt to send their children to private schools from that education tax? Because we receive no support from the Government,” McKenzie said.

That argument is buttressed by private schools continuing to dominate national performance metrics, with students from these institutions consistently excelling in national exams such as the Primary Exit Profile used to place students in high schools. However, the high standards have not translated into financial stability.

“Our students deliver. We set the standards for performance,” McKenzie asserted.

The struggles in private education mirror the trend in public primary schools. Data from the Ministry of Education show that 604 public primary schools are operating below capacity, with enrolment declining significantly over recent years.

The ministry said that the declining student population in primary schools is “shaped by several interconnected factors”, including migration, lower birth rates, and shifts in demographic patterns. Some schools have also cited crime as a contributing factor to the exodus from certain areas.

Jamaica’s fertility rate has seen a significant decline from 4.5 births per female between 1973 and 1975 to 1.9 in 2021, the 2021 Reproductive Health Survey Jamaica released by the National Family Planning Board earlier this year shows.

The figure, while aligned with a global downward trend, falls below the replacement rate of 2.1 needed to sustain population levels.

The situation forced the ministry to close two primary schools this year, the first such closures in seven years. These closures bring the total number of schools shuttered since 2014 to 29, with 25 of those closed between 2014 and 2015 as part of an aggressive rationalisation policy under the Portia Simpson Miller administration.

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