By Nadine Wilson-Harris
School administrators have been calling back retired teachers, employing students in their final year at teachers’ colleges, and retaining the services of graduates with no teaching experience, in a desperate bid to plug the large gap left by the mass migration of educators to more developed countries in recent months.
Even as the new school year gets underway, some principals are anxious as up to last week, they were still receiving resignation letters. Many have been placing advertisements, hoping that they can fill key vacancies, and at this point, have lowered their usually high standards for recruits as they seek to replace those who have left.
According to newly installed president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) Leighton Johnson, while principals would have spent the summer preparing their physical plants and ensuring all is in place for the new school year, there is uncertainty relating to the teaching staff.
“As we speak, we know that in terms of the whole matter of preparation for the resumption of schools, one of the major challenges that confront principals and school administrators is the fact that there is an impending teacher shortage, and to this point, there are vacancies that have not been filled, and this of course is increasing anxiety among educational administrators,” he told the Freedom Come Rain newspaper.
Some of the 1500 teachers who were recently granted four and eight months leave by the Ministry of Education and Youth have since opted to work and receive payment instead. In her address to delegates attending the 59th annual JTA conference at Royalton Negril Resort and Spa in Westmoreland on August 23, education minister Fayval Williams noted that leave approval has been a longstanding issue, but this year all teachers who had applied for eight months leave were approved.
While this and other measures implemented by the Ministry to cushion the teacher shortage might have provided a little relief, they have not sufficiently addressed the problems.
Johnson pointed to the classified section in the Sunday Gleaner in highlighting the scope of the issue. He noted that at this time of the year, the advertisements for teachers would have been few since most schools would have filled vacant posts by now, but up to Sunday, there were still many schools seeking teachers for key positions at their institutions.
“If you were to look in the Sunday paper, you would still see several schools advertising for not just one or two, but, in some cases five and six members of staff. That is worrying at this point,” he said.
Johnson, who is the principal of Muschette High in Trelawny, said school administrators are currently sourcing educators from wherever they can, including from the teachers colleges. Teachers who are due retirement are also being asked to consider staying on.
“What you find is that the fourth-year students who have their final practicum to do, are now opting to come into our education system to be engaged and used in our schools to gain valuable experience to complete their course of studies and to assist in alleviating the problems that will arise out of the teacher shortage,” said the senior educator.
The Ministry of Education has sought to downplay concerns that the education sector is facing a teacher migration crisis. Williams disclosed during a post-cabinet press briefing on August 16, that 427 teachers had resigned during the period January 2023 to September 2023. This she said accounted for 1.7 percent of the total number of teachers in the public education system and was a significant decline from the year before. Some 1,538 teachers resigned between January and September in the public sector in 2022, which represented approximately 6.2 percent of the teachers in the public education system.
“We are in a much better place this year relative to last year regarding resignations,” she said.
Johnson warned that school administrators won’t know for sure the extent of the resignations until school re-opens.
“The minister has her figures. The figures that she has quoted are figures that are between January and now. What we need to do now is to wait on the actual start of the school year to ascertain the full impact. But one can get a sense of where it is we are as a sector on the basis that as this point, there are still several schools that have teachers outstanding,” said the JTA president, who prior to speaking to Freedom Come Rain, had been in discussion with three principals who all received resignation letters from teachers that day who migrated to the United States.
He said the teachers colleges have indicated a decline in enrollment numbers over the last few years, and he believes this is because teaching is no longer an attractive profession.
“What needs to happen is that there is the need for a national consensus and a national campaign to get the teaching profession to be an attractive profession that will appeal to young individuals who have the knack, who have the know-how, who have the ability, and who are agile in their thinking to be teachers,” Johnson said as he appealed to stakeholders to help teachers feel more valued.
“In its current state, teaching is not attractive. So persons are not inclined to choose teaching as a profession simply because of the remuneration package,” he said.