By Garwin Davis, Assistant News Editor
MINISTER OF Education Maxine Henry-Wilson said she is concerned about the problems teachers are having dealing with students suffering from both physical and mental impairments at the early childhood level.
This, the Minister conceded, is becoming even more difficult, considering that many teachers are "neither trained nor equipped" to deal with these problems.
"We regrettably are short of special education teachers," Mrs. Henry-Wilson said. "Mico is the only school - teacher training college- that is turning out special educators."
She continued: "One of the things about special educators is that they can do the kind of testing that you need to see whether the child has any kind of conflict, disability...whether they can't hear well, or whether they can't see well. We have to be able to detect these ailments before we can go ahead and make any kind of recommendation."
Mrs. Henry-Wilson said it was extremely important that specialist teachers be brought into the system to assist with early detection, noting that failure to do so could severely hamper the ability of affected students to learn.
"It is a combined effort at the early childhood level," she added. "It is about giving the early childhood providers some ability to detect ...early detection, especially at the primary level is very important. We need to be able to detect whether there is anything that would prevent that child from learning which is why the special educators are very important. "The Minister said there would also be a collaborative effort between the Education Ministry and the Ministry of Health to tackle the problem.
TEACHERS SCEPTICAL
Teachers, claiming they have heard this all before, however remain sceptical. In a series of recent interviews, they blamed some of the failure at the Grade Four level on health problems which follow students throughout their school life.
One of the more telling perspectives came from Dr. Polly Bowle-Howell, principal of Stony Hill Primary and Junior High in an earlier interview. "As it is now, there is a screening test of Grade One students entering the system," she explained. "This test, however, cannot pick up some of the physical and mental problems that the youngsters come into the system with and which later can be devastating for them. We have children coming in with visual problems, heart problems, sickle cell and even dyslexia."
LIMITATIONS
Dr. Bowle-Howell said that 60 per cent of those children go on to fail the critical Grade 4 placement test. "They don't have a chance," she added. "Because of their limitations these kids are left behind and are later thrust upon society without any skill or proper guidance."
According to the Planning Institute of Jamaica, a total of 41,128 students sat the Grade Four Literacy Test of the National Assessment Programme (NAP) in 793 primary schools last year. They were classified according to their performance in three categories: "Questionable status" (Status Q), "at risk" and "enrichment" (not at risk). Data from 84.0 per cent of the schools showed 18.5 per cent were classified as 'Status Q', 30.8 per cent at risk and 50.7 per cent enrichment.
Crowded classrooms are also being blamed. Teacher Marlise Cowie from Boundbrook Primary School said that many teachers at the primary level are not trained to deal with students with health problems.
"It is a crisis," she said. "I really don't know how to deal with a student who is obviously suffering from some form of impairment. The situation now warrants an intervention from the Ministry of Health."
Winsome Afflick, formerly of Three Hills Primary School in St. Mary, said that every school should have a special educator to assist in identifying these health problems. "If our vision is to reach every child then certainly we have been doing a very poor job of it," she said.
Added Dr. Bowle-Howell, "We continue to see this problem getting worse. We cannot ignore it any longer."
