SOME FOUR years ago, the National Council on Education (NCE) prepared recommendations for the then Minister of Education which, inter alia, called for the licensing of teachers.
When Mrs. Maxine Henry-Wilson became Minister of Education she made several public statements supporting in principle the call by the NCE for teachers to be licensed but only now after long delays, has an official position on the issue been announced.
Addressing the 41st Annual Conference of the Jamaica Teachers' Association, Mrs. Henry-Wilson has confirmed that a licensing body, to be known as the National Education Qualification Authority (NEQUA) will be established to make the licensing of Jamaican teachers a reality. The aim, as recommended by the task force on education, is to ensure that all teachers complete a Bachelor's degree in education and that holders of degrees in a subject discipline with no teacher training must complete at least a diploma in teacher education.
As welcome as this news is we note that the authority is not to come into existence for 12 to 18 months.
Even if some minor amendments to the Education Code and the Education Act may be necessary to facilitate the new policy, we are unsure why such an important matter is being given such low priority.
And we also wonder at the wisdom of creating yet another bureaucracy to implement licensing when the NCE, hardly overworked at this stage of its existence, could take on the task. Might it not also be possible for the recently-established Early Childhood Commission to be charged with responsibility for licensing teachers in the crucial early childhood sector of the education system, especially since the commission comprises a broad cross-section of experts in the field.
There is now recognition that the Jamaican education system is seriously flawed and needs reform. What seems to be missing is the political will to get on with the job.
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