PM urges transformation of education sector for digital workforce

WESTERN BUREAU:

PRIME MINISTER Andrew Holness says that Jamaica must transform its education system so that students can be empowered to become innovators in the globally growing technological age and be qualified to take on the projected 97 million new jobs to come through technological application.

Speaking during Thursday’s Budget Debate in the House of Representatives, Holness said that at present, the nation’s students are not equipped to fit into the revolutionised global job market as it is projected to stand by 2025.

“The World Economic Forum, in its Future of Jobs Report, estimated that by 2025, 85 million jobs may be displaced by technology. However, the report also estimates that 97 million new jobs will emerge that are more adapted to the new division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms. Madam Speaker, is our current education system geared towards preparing our children to compete globally and get their fair share of these 97 million new digital economy jobs? I think we all know the answer,” said Holness.

“We therefore need to urgently transform our education system so that our children have the skills to participate in this revolution. STEAM disciplines – science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics and coding – are at the heart of the global technological revolution. We must truly embrace science and technology as drivers of economic transformation and growth,” Holness added.

The prime minister made his declaration while outlining three issues which are expected to be addressed in a systematic transformation of Jamaica’s education system as part of efforts to alleviate the learning loss suffered by students due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Those three issues include the alignment of quality education with future job markets, restoration of societal values to handle violence prevention, and inequity in access to quality education.

STUDENTS’ LEARNING LOSS DUE TO COVID-19

Despite numerous initiatives to provide students with devices to facilitate online learning via Zoom or Google Classroom, the matter of students’ learning loss due to the pandemic has been a thorn in the Ministry of Education’s side ever since face-to-face schooling was cut off in March 2020 due to the global onset of COVID-19. Last year, the ministry reported that some 120,000 students had not been engaged in online classes.

In January this year, it was reported that 40 per cent of students were not engaged in any kind of learning during the first week of the current school term, with approximately 15,000 students from 290 schools being unaccounted for. It was also estimated that it would take some $3.9 billion over a two-year period to address the challenges caused in the education sector by the pandemic.

During that period, Opposition Spokesman on Finance Julian Robinson warned that students could end up leaving school in three to five years without being literate or numerate, if the Ministry of Education should fail to address the matter. He said that students who have not benefited from online learning could fall victim to criminality or teenage pregnancy.

Face-to-face classes were officially fully resumed on March 7, even as the education ministry urged the public to help in locating some 40,000 students who had not been attending any classes.

Concerning efforts to remediate the learning loss issue, Holness noted that $1 billion has been allocated to hire temporary teachers, and that just over 14,000 students have taken advantage of the recently launched extra lesson programme.

“We have budgeted approximately $1 billion for the upcoming fiscal year, for temporary teachers to help our students. That is a very important point, Madam Speaker, as we are not just talking about recovery for learning loss; we are actually putting the money there,” said Holness.

“Since the recent launch of our extra lesson programme to help with that recovery, 2,100 students have registered for the online extra lesson programme, and 11,926 students have registered and are now engaged in face-to-face extra lessons – 6,175 secondary students and 5,751 primary students. I want to encourage all our students and parents to take advantage of this extra lesson support to begin to make up for the learning loss,” Holness added.