Channel temp teacher pay to basic, primary schools
Published:Wednesday | March 30, 2022 | 12:08 AM
The early-childhood and primary education sector should receive a significant chunk from the $1 billion being allocated by the Government to employ temporary teachers to help students recover from pandemic-induced learning loss, says Winston Smith, president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA).
While noting that secondary education should receive sufficient disbursements, Smith said in a Gleaner interview that a concerted effort must be made to “solidify the quality of education available to children in the early childhood-primary sector and to incorporate students with special needs”.
On the question of whether the sum set aside was sufficient to address the significant fallout in learning, Smith said it was difficult to give a definitive response at this time without first examining a number of issues.
The JTA president said that he would have to review the breakdown of the allocation in relation to the qualification of the teachers who are being engaged, their experience, how long the engagement will last, and the institutions that are being targeted.
“If you are in a volatile or remote area, you have to factor in remote allowance or inducement allowance, all of those little nuances would have to be worked out to know whether or not the $1 billion will amount to anything significant,” he said.
Executive director of the Early Childhood Commission (ECC), Karlene Deslandes, indicated that the sector was not spared in terms of learning loss.
She told The Gleaner that a number of children were missing from the learning space in the early-childhood sector since the onset of COVID-19 in March 2020.
Deslandes pointed out that the early-childhood sector also grappled with issues such as access to the Internet and lack of devices.
The ECC said last week that the agency had not received its approved budget and, as such, would not be able to say if there is an increase in the sum allocated to the sector this year.
However, the ECC said it has submitted an increased budget for approval this year.
In the meantime, the ECC is reviewing the recommendations of the Orlando Patterson report to determine the proposals to be implemented in the short term.
“One of the areas that we are re-establishing is our age-four assessment – that will assist us to assess children at age four, so that we are better able to prepare them for grade one primary. This will be administered during the last week of June this year,” Deslandes said.
In his contribution to the Budget Debate, Prime Minister Andrew Holness said that the Government would provide $1 billion in the upcoming fiscal year for the employment of temporary teachers to help students recover from learning loss experienced during the disruption of face-to-face classes.
This will be primarily facilitated through the Ministry of Education and Youth’s Extra Lessons Programme.