An inside look at research from the School of Education.
Review of Education Regulation 1980
Submitted by
Craig on Dec 16, 2013 13:40 pm
A critical aspect of a transformed education system is a robust and relevant policy, legal and regulatory framework. Following the recommendations of the Task Force on Educational Reform Report, 2004, the Ministry of Education has embarked on a comprehensive transformation programme to streamline the public education system. This includes a review of the Education Act, 1965 and the attendant Regulations of 1980. The review of the foregoing legislation is important. Our education system has gone through and continues to go through immense changes. Understandings and procedures that were adequate in 1980 might very well not be adequate now. A review is needed to ensure that the powers and purposes expressed in the Regulations are in keeping with those powers and responsibilities conferred on the Minister of Education under the Jamaican Constitution, particularly those imposed under the new Charter of Rights. Additionally, the Ministry of Education’s transformation agenda/initiatives ‘of necessity’ require a periodic check of the Regulations that guide implementation. We have initiatives such as the Jamaica Teaching Council Bill, the National Education Inspectorate and the National Parenting Commission- to name a few.
The National Council on Education (NCE), the major policy advisory body on emerging issues within the educational landscape, has been mandated to co-ordinate the legislative review process. But the NCE needs you! Consequently, Professor Bryan, a member of NCE’s Steering Committee, is seeking your contribution as a citizen/professional who has in one way or another interacted with the education system. What is it that you think needs to be done differently? What possible better processes/systems are we not using now?
Expected outcomes o
f the legislative review process include the establishment of a cohesive legislative framework for the Jamaican education system as well as the identification and removal of barriers to achieving improved levels of accountability and performance.
Please look at the Regulations, log into the CoP website and let us have your suggestions/recommendations by January 10th. For this initial consultation, we’re not seeking ideas couched in legalese - just let us have your ideas.
To assist we offer the following starting questions:
• Which sections of the EducationRegulations should remain?
• What suggested amendments should be made to existing sections?(explain succinctly each proposed amendment)
• What gaps have you identified in the Regulations? How/Where do you think these can be included?
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Comments (6)
there are gaps in the
there are gaps in the edusystem both in the classroom and at the community level.
as an informal or lay teacher, i have experienced and discovered a few critical gaps that must be filled:
1. the absence of quality parental, nutritional and environmental input within the first three years of a new born child has resulted in an increased level of frustration among teachers who have to deal with fifteen or more children, at any given time; these students have not yet developed the habitual skills of learning or for a more modern term the cognitive skills. When a mentally and physically underdeveloped child enters a classroom at age 3 - 6 years, it takes more from a teacher to get that one child to be performing at the average level, even more if that one [1] teacher has to deal with more than one child. Such a child will need individual attention so as to provide guidance, even during independent learning and playing, which are also critical components in education that create the balance and set the stage for mass learning.
2. With the current educational and illiteracy crisis we are now faced with, it is imperative that we expand and improve on the remedial aspect so as to correct the wrong. Bear in mind that this is only short term, as no other child should be allowed to go through the abuse and neglect in the formative years, so as to require this type of remedial care in latter days
3. Focus on the most severe cases as your priority and model of project. The inner-city schools and communties.
3. Let the church get involved in after school educational programmes, that is supervised and monitored, so as to ensure the goals are being achieved. they must work in partnership with the schools; their purpose is to fill gaps and reinforce what s being taught in schools
4. Encourage Home Work centers in christian homes that not just focusses on home work but also social skills and Worship of the Supreme Being
5. Start teaching at the early childhood level, the meaning of names, so as to build the children's faith as to who they are and will become
6. the authorities need to seek help on naming; many of our students in the classrooms biggest barrier to learning are the names given to them. Some names must needs be changed in order for some children to be free from learning disability
7. integrate patois and an oral test of it, within the curriculum. stop ridiculing children and brand them as butu when they speak patois; donot penalise a child who answer a question correctly, albeit in his native language. The Patois is the only language given to us from Within, that is to say we got it from the Creator. english was given to us by the slave masters; Why then are we testing and valuing our children based on an adopted foreign language? We do it because we are not operating within an independent space. But whose space are we operating in? The space of the english or the Space of the Almighty One. Only england can save us with the english language, but the CREATOR will teach us through the language he gave us, The Patois. So i cherish my patois and master it too, but the english language, i will continue to babble with it.
8. with no disrespect to our mother tongue, but when our mother and father forsake us, then our real father[YHWH] will take us up and teach us HIS Ways, not the way of another GOD, but HIS Way.
9. Let us use the school as a training ground to instill the Love of GOD in our children, by the way we live as adults, both parents and teachers. Let us use the bible as the chief reading book and book of rules; i challenge you, when we do this - YHWH will open the brains of our children, and we will bring forth men and women of greatness, with knowledge of goodness, not of evil, who gives honour to the LORD, through their Love, the same Love they receive from the adults.
10. Pay attention to what the children transmit through their five senses, these vibrations must impact on their behaviour. [ pay attention to what they :see, hear, taste, smell and feel or touch].
Many Rivers To Cross- But Like A Bridge Over Troubled Waters, GOD is looking for someone to lay them down in Jamaica, so we can all cross those rivers? Ask yourself, Is It I?
English versus Patois
It is far from being a question in my mind as to whether or not English Language is our first or second language. It is a fact that as Jamaicans, the most commonly spoken language is Our Patois Language, also, there's a vast percentage of our population who have not yet mastered the English Language, like myself, yet they speak the Patois with cloven tongue, that is to say with ease and fluency and as a language they are attached to; that is not foreign . Acknowledging that Patois is our first language and English our second, we must also acknowledge that English is the Universal Language and is used in business to gather the world's wealth and power. The power of the Greek converted into Latin, through religious and political orders, The English Language became our taught language until this day, after we were taken into slavery in the 1400. Any well thinking nation that is solely concerned with the wealth and materialistic power of its people must ensure that all its people start learning the English Language from birth to at least age 8, [Providing that English Language remain the universal language of wealth creation, especially here in the West], so as to allow the child time and space to develop such foreign language with ease and fluency, the native Patois will come naturally and doesn’t really need to be taught.
In 2013, Javon Francis, my schoolmate from Calabar, ran an heroic last leg in the 4 x 400 relay. He was coming literally from the back pack and passed four [4] or [5] athletes over a distance of about 250 meters. The entire Jamaica who was watching at the moment felt a sense of achievement, joy and unity; there were celebrations and cheers from every community, people who were having a bad day, some broke and hungry, some in malice were rubbing shoulders and shouting.
Javon athletically helped Jamaica to the silver medal and a place on the podium. While being interviewed, he spoke in his native language. He was being ridiculed in some quarters as someone who lacks the ability to articulately represent Jamaica. What if he was given an interpreter, like many foreign Prime Ministers and Celebrities who cannot speak English, but because of their value and who they are, an interpreter is given to them, when they speak on the world stage. So instead of trying to rob Javon of his glory, lets measure his value and is skills in other areas, to see if it warrants an interpreter, then give him one, if he is to get one, and jamaica wins.
When our dearly beloved prime minister expressed in her native tongue the expression "noh draw mi tong" after being devillishly provoked by the opposition, she was looked down on, as a "butu," but had the media interpreted to English for the sake of international viewers the slang to mean – “do not provoke me to the point where I will speak things that I am not suppose to speak as a respectful woman and one aspiring to be Prime Minister,” Jamaica would have won. Because of our lack of respect to the language and to persons who communicate through it, we assassinate our brothers and sisters verbally, and with the same english language, we perform our own act of assassination, corruption and disrespect.
What we cannot and must not ignore are the spiritual and religious meaning attached and laced to the English Language. Do we as Jamaicans understand the spiritual roots of the English Language? Based on what is being revealed to me, from an highly reliable and authentic source, most of which cannot be written but spoken in secrecy, it would pay us a great deal, if we learn how to write the Patois and use it as our religious and spiritual language, then we would spare ourselves the wrath which is to overtake the western world with a language whose vowels spell trouble. There are some serious issues that must be resolved, but the authorities and those with the earthly power are too busy to listen, read and act upon the right things. May Yah Bless Us, If the authority needs to know how to proceed in writing the Patois, I can help, but there are some even greater issues. They are too busy, they are not listening and there is a huge roadblock that interferes with communications addressed to the Prime Minister. You will have to press real hard to get their attention, and the media is not helping much either, unless they like your report, it will not be printed. You wonder if this is a plan by some force or power not known to the common man, to forever keep us in darkness, so as to allow the gods and most powerful of this world continuing to hold the wealth and power in their own hands.
Reading
One of our biggest problem is reading. We do not read. If what was written by me before was to be enacted or performed on stage, it would have triggered a more robust debate. The cares and challenges we are faced with, keep us extremely busy, to the point that we only read information that we deemed extremely important and attractively articulated. Only those items that makes the headline or that is of great importance to us we log on to. Do we ever wonder what is the workload like for most of our teachers? How much time do they get to offer individual attention to each student in addition to their husband and own children? How much time do they get to peruse each child's book after school and put a plan in place to fill any gaps, both collectively and individually? We might just be pushing the teachers a little too much above what they are capable of doing, instead of paying more attention to the neglected innercity mothers and children. We must:
> Address the ills in the homes and at the community level first, then the jobs for the teachers, pastors, and employers will be much easier and most achieving.
> create school mothers and fathers from among the PTA who reside in the school community, to assist in the right social and moral development of each child. These mothers and fathers must act as liaison officers between the schools and the communities
> create a new career path in Patois - English- Patois Translation, and encourage our excellent Language students to pursue this as an extra career
> ensure that every school has an effective chaplain unit. This unit must be responsible for the continued spiritual development of the students through the TRUTH of the WORD OF YHWH, the CREATOR of LIFE. Remember, not just a unit, but an effective one. This chaplain unit must be given the responsiblity to ensure that fallacies and unproven and destructive theories be kept out of the space of the students, so as to minimise the incidence of illusion and false worship, resulting in sacrificial murders, accidents and killings from among the school community..
We cannot seek to develop our children with concern only to their materialistic and intellectual gains; the knowledge of who they are: their true history, present and their future must also be given equal importance. And if we look at history and fail to cover, or go back as far as the genesis or the root of jamaicans, we will be found wanting. It is sad to say this, but the gods of this world has created an environment where the cares of its life have rendered much men, blind to the reality of Truth that is before their naked eyes. But YHWH is sending help, and any time now, that help will be, and must not be ignored nor rejected, even these words must not be ignored nor rejected, if we really want to de excellently.
personal experience
The recommendations put forward before is as a result of my experience growing my daughter[ born December 7, 2007] and teaching her for the first six years of her life. She came to live with me at age 1year and six months in the inner city community of Jones Town. Upon evaluation at that time, she was: > withdrawn > not speaking in sentences [sometimes two or the most three words]. > cries the first week, when l took her to the nursery > Smiles frequently > eats slowly > slim built and bald headed > yearns after love and attention These were the results after four and half years [2009 - 2013] of consistent and practical instructions in: A. Speech Development [in the home, communication to her is in the Standard English 99% of the time B. Writing Drills, Drawing Drills, Counting Drills, Alphabet Drills and Spelliing Drills every day, except Sunday C. And every Friday Night, her free night to watch Religious TV and Listen Worship Songs [she doesn’t listen to dancehall and reggae music, at no time in the home, neither does she watch violent or romantic movies], play Sabbath Games and go to bed any time she chooses. D. The teaching of the seventeen skill areas necessary for Early Learning [ Visual Discrimination: Colours, Shapes, Letters, Numbers, People, Animal, Object and Places - Phonics: Letter Sounds, Vowel Sounds, Consonant Blend, Putting it All Together and Reading SentencesHear - See - Say - Do method in teaching: Spelling, Basic Sight, Numbers, Shapes and Colour WordsHear- See - Say - Do method in teaching Addition and Subtraction with answers less than 10, Days of the Week, Months of the Year, Times and Seasons, Time-table, Telling Time and Money Recognition.When her mother sent for her in November of 2013, she was taken out of Lannaman’s Prep, and I am not sure where they have her now, since they are trying to keep her away from me, so as to make up for their long absence, and not realizing the emotional abuse they are scarring her with, by depriving her of her teaching father, who she loves and cherish.
I really missed her and I know she is being hurt emotionally, the fact that they are not allowing her to see her dad. I have tried and waited patiently on the CDA to intervene and identify if there’s any case of abuse being meted out to her currently, but their hands are tied and to date, I have received no response from them. And as I said, I don’t even know if she is in school now.Other students in the after school programme are also proof that after-school assistance do make a lot of difference. My daughter, Amelia, is not the only top performer in the programme. I had two [2] Valedictorians in 2013, in addition to my daughter. They were selected to read the Valedictorian Speech at their Basic School’s Graduation, simply because they were recognized for their reading ability at age 6 and before, in addition to their consistent improvement in many other areas, including that of social skills. There are records to verify all these indicators. I can only make my voice be heard as well as continue to use the skill and gift that YHWH has given to me, to touch the lives of those persons who want and need to be touched. Will this site COP assist in anyway, to reduce the incidence of child abuse, especially among inner city children like my Amelia. I Hope.
Look at the basics of the institution’s operation
Colleagues,
I am very pleased that we have this opportunity to review how we run schools. I am emphasising that word ‘run’ because the regulations are very specific. They guide how schools are organized and managed. At one stage in our discussions we have to talk policy but at other times (this time).
Most of our regulations need review from time to time-even a basic thing such as the length of the school day or year (section 7-9 on page 9 of the Ed Reg.). Can that regulation remain as is?
But there might be another small step that needs to be taken in the school’s operation that jumps out at you. One of my bones of contention is the absence of adults when children are on breaks/recess in the playfield. Tragic accidents occur with toppling goalposts etc. Shouldshouldn’t the children not always be supervised at all times? Or is the regulation written in such a way that it does not allow this to happen?
And then the other point to consider: are there necessary regulations that are missing? One glaring example is the absence of any regulations related to special needs care? What should be done in this area? Let us have your specific proposals on how we manage schools and make them sites of safety, care and excellence.
Regulation in context
“We become null and useless with less conformity to our generational era.’ As time changes so does the methods used to implement changes? The policy of how an educational institution is run should not be affected.
There is an elephant in the room that needs to be addressed. HOW MUCH DO WE FOLLOW THE REGULATONS CORRECTLY?
Do we religiously interpret the regulations based on our denomination? Do we take from it what applies to a specific situation?
A governor and members of a school board should go under extreme and careful examination of the regulations. Far too long, we have been focusing on changing the education regulations and not seeing how it can be implemented in this generational context.
Do not fix something that isn’t broken, improve on it. Let us examine through research what is working and use data to drive what isn’t.
The Education regulation is a tool. Do you know how to use it?