Teacher shortages - Several schools still suffering

Garwin Davis, staff reporter

Whiteman

With nearly two months into the new school year, several schools are still short of vital teachers.

And according to the principals at some of these schools, the situation becomes even more frustrating by their inability to fill the spaces, as finding teachers, they say, is not as easy as in previous years. This they are blaming on the mass exodus of some of their colleagues to overseas classrooms, which they claim, has been taking its toll on a number of schools.

"I am having a problem filling vacancies at my school," declared Leslie Riley, principal of Marcus Garvey High School in St. Ann. "This is a chronic situation which is threatening to undermine the discipline at the school." Mr. Riley said that since and before the start of the school term he has been calling around to various places trying to find teachers but to no avail. "We have a situation now where students are being unsupervised," he noted. "This is dangerous as students that are not monitored tend to be easily agitated."

The situation is the same at the Three Hills Primary School in St. Mary. "Only today (last Wednesday) did we fill one of our positions," explained acting Principal Donna Green. "The school term began with us being short of two teachers and it was real chaotic. We called the placement centres; we called around to schools but were unable to fill the positions. Most of the schools we called told us that they were experiencing the same problem."

Checks by The Sunday Gleaner revealed that an unusually high number of schools are advertising for teachers to fill specialist positions. These schools include Jamaica College, Glenmuir High School, Clarendon College, St. Andrew Technical High School, Knox College and Camperdown High School. One school, St. Mary's College, is advertising for as many as six teachers.

This is coming against the backdrop of the Government declaring that despite earlier concerns, the start of the school term was the smoothest it had seen in many years. Two weeks ago at a rally in his Westmoreland constituency, Prime Minister P.J. Patterson chided those he said were predicting "doom and gloom" for the start of the school year. "I heard them saying all kind of things were going to happen at the beginning of the school term," Mr. Patterson said. "I heard them saying that we would be short of teachers and that classes would be disrupted. Where are those voices now? I can tell you that this has been the smoothest start we have had to the start of a school term in years."

But according to Dr. Adolph Cameron, secretary general for the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA), the Government may have misread the situation, thus, he said, their failing to recognise the impact the exodus of teachers is having on the educational system. "It is still not clear as to the actual number of teachers we have lost to overseas jobs," Dr. Cameron said. "We estimate that over 600 went to the United States with others going to the United Kingdom, the Bahamas and Grand Cayman. We are keeping a close watch on the very high number of schools that are still searching for teachers."

Dr. Cameron notes that the JTA's job placement centre, unlike previous years, has not been inundated with requests from teachers seeking jobs. This he attributes to a shortage of teachers in the system. "The Government clearly believed that just having a body in front of a class is good enough," he added. "This does not equate to quality education. We are now told that in some cases, sixth formers are being used to fill in for teachers. As we have stated before, the loss of quality teachers to overseas jobs will impact heavily on our system which we are seeing signs of now. We need quality teachers to teach our children."

The migration of teachers to overseas jobs was the main focal point of last month's 37th annual JTA conference held at the Jamaica Grande hotel in Ocho Rios. The association maintained that the mass migration could pose serious problems for the school system, especially since mainly specialists teachers were leaving. They also noted that a number of teachers were not giving their schools adequate notice for fear that they could compromised their jobs if they had a change of heart.

"September could be a serious problem," the JTA's immediate past president, Judith Spencer-Jarrett, had warned. "Teachers have been very cautious. Many of them had applied for jobs overseas but were not indicating so for fear that if they did not get through they could have severely compromised themselves. I personally know a few that are leaving in September who hadn't previously indicated that they would be doing so."

The Ministry of Education had insisted that all schools would be adequately staffed by the time the new school term started. Minister Burchell Whiteman noted then that the teacher recruitment process had been going well and that his ministry "seemed to be on top of the problem." He also pointed to the 20 Cuban teachers that were coming to assist with the void.

Dorothia Walker, director of the Ministry of Education's region three centre in Brown's Town, St. Ann, said that her region which comprised St. Mary, St. Ann and Trelawny did not have a problem with a shortage of teachers.

When told that several schools in her region were indicating otherwise she said that they did not contact her office which was more than able to assist in finding teachers. "We have to understand that in under to replace teachers, they have to be given 14 days," she said. "The law states that we have to give them that allotted time before we can declare their positions vacant."

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