Thousands of teachers flee Jamaica each year due to low salaries and unsatisfactory working conditions, but there are concerns that their vacant positions are being filled by LGBTQ operatives who are indoctrinating scores of children into the lifestyle.
The observation was made by some educators at traditional high schools in the island.
“More schools are leaning towards employing homosexual teachers,” said an educator at one of the top co-ed institutions in Jamaica.
Christian teachers who are standing firmly against the lifestyle and refuse to endorse same sex relationships have been labeled homophobic by some of their counterparts in some institutions.
“Persons are saying it’s the 21st century, so there is freedom to do what they want to do and live how they want to live,” one teacher who spoke with Freedom Come Rain said. She pointed out further that the LGBTQ teachers often times do not disguise their sexual preferences.
Teachers at her school are instructed to be inclusive and open-minded and although it’s a Christian institution, administrators “bury their heads” in the sand.
Another teacher told our news team that there has definitely been increased recruitment of LGBTQ teachers at the institution where he works. He is concerned that some of the students at his school are entering into relationships with LGBTQ teachers, noting that often times, the students are the ones pursuing these relationships.
“ Believe me when I tell you this, and I hope somebody do a study; gone are the days when the adults are going to look the pickney. I’m going to tell you straight, pickney a guh look you in the school,” he said.
According to Ministry of Education data, 1,185 teachers resigned between September 2024 and August 2025. More than 1,500 teachers resigned between January and September 2022, representing approximately 6.2 per cent of the sector’s complement. Many of these teachers left to take up better paying jobs in America and the UK. Another 854 teachers resigned between January and September 2023. According to official data, this included 593 primary, early childhood, and special education teachers as well as guidance counselors and 530 secondary level subject teachers.
The Mico University College Alumni (MOSA), in collaboration with the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), held a panel discussion in February looking at ‘Securing the Future of Education in Jamaica: Confronting Teacher Migration’. Then JTA President Mark Smith, highlighted that low salary is a key driver of understaffed schools, particularly in specific subject areas. A recent survey by the Caribbean Centre for Educational Planning (CCEP) has revealed that 49 per cent of teachers who have migrated or plan to migrate claim that low wages was the primary reason for leaving Jamaica.
Smith also shared that the shortage of resources in schools adds to the challenges. Teachers sometimes feel discouraged by the lack of support to properly carry out their lessons.
“The vacancies that are left are now filled by these (LGBTQ) people because it is easy for them to argue, ‘there is nobody else,” said one guidance counsellor.
“Everything is becoming commonplace these days. And I don’t know if it was a plan to frustrate certain teachers so that they would leave,” he pondered.