The President of the Jamaica Teachers Association, Owen Speid is calling on the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information to address several issues in the education sector. One of these issues, he says, includes teachers having to write lesson plans. He says plans are underway to create an online platform for teachers to access and use.
“As it stands what you find is that teachers have to spend all weekend doing lesson plans and that is bothersome to the educators. In some other jurisdictions, what teachers can do is go on the lesson plan website. They dont have to write lessons plans from scratch and that is a pull factor from recruiters in foreign countries,” he said.
While suggesting that Teachers should be better compensated, he says the Education Ministry needs to create means of keeping teachers in the local education system.
“When the other workers in other fields work for a year, they are asked to go on leave but when teachers apply for this it is denied. This is a serious problem because our teachers are dying in the classroom. There is a real serious spike,” he noted.
Speid was speaking to our news team following a symposium at the Jamaica Conference Centre.
KHADIJAH THOMAS
