Technical Resources

The Ministry of Education has taken a policy position to end the use of corporal punishment of all forms in schools. In support of this decision, and given the culturally embedded nature of corporal punishment in our society and schools, the Ministry is supporting the abolition of corporal punishment by providing information and training to guide school personnel on alternatives to corporal punishment.

It is against this background that this resource guide to support positive discipline in Jamaica’s schools is being produced. Its purpose is to provide easy access to information for school personnel, especially teachers, and Ministry of Education officials to support them in using alternatives to corporal punishment.The document should therefore serve as a guide to help create and maintain environments that support positive discipline in schools.

The following papers were presented at a structured poster session, “The Complex Ecology of Response to Intervention,” at the American Educati onal Research Associati on 2010 Annual Meeti ng in Denver, Colorado.

The papers provide an overview of the current state of RTI in terms of research and implementati on. Additional topics covered include informati on on the overall RTI framework, screening and progress monitoring within RTI, delivery of instructi onal interventi ons within a RTI system, SLD identi fi cati on and RTI, implementati on of RTI across states, and RTI as it relates to special populati ons, including minority students, English language learners, middle-school students, and high-school students.

Exploring the possibility for collaboration between the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) and the National Council on Education (NCE) to strengthen School Boards in Jamaica through training and Open and Distance Learning is most timely. Such an alliance can prove pivotal in shifting Jamaica’s mid-term threshold for crucial economic and social development, with the benefits possibly expanding to other Caribbean nations.

The Mandate
i) Research gaps and training needs to Strengthen School Boards
ii) Identify potential partners for Open and Distance Learning to improve access to
training

This book is about the threats to education quality that cannot be explained by lack of resources. It reviews service delivery failures in education: cases where programs and policies increase inputs to education but do not produce effective services where it counts – in the classroom. It documents what we know about the extent and costs of such failures. It argues that a root cause of low-quality and inequitable public services is the weak accountability of providers to both their supervisors and clients.

 The central focus of the book is that countries are increasingly adopting innovative strategies to attack these problems. Drawing on new evidence from 22 rigorous evaluations in 11 countries, this book examines how strategies to strengthen accountability relationships in school systems have affected schooling outcomes.

The book provides a succinct review of the rationale and impact evidence for three key lines of reform: (1) policies that use the power of information to strengthen the ability of students and their parents to hold providers accountable for results; (2) policies that promote schools’ autonomy to make key decisions and control resources; and (3) teacher incentives reforms that specifically aim at making teachers more accountable for results.