Education Minister says JTC bill needed to raise teaching standards

 

Education Minister Dr. Dana Morris Dixon is doubling down on the importance of the Jamaica Teaching Council bill. 

 

Dr. Morris Dixon says the idea is to raise the standard of the teaching profession. She adds that it will address areas of deficiencies within the education sector.

 

"It is setting professional standards for teachers. It speaks to continuous professional development. It speaks to fit and proper, how you establish that someone is good enough to be around our children. So these types of legislation...you're seeing more of them around the world, and even in CARICOM. CARICOM had agreed that this was something that was a priority for member states. And you also have global commissions on education that have all said that this is the direction that will be very helpful for countries in terms of raising the standards and really protecting the profession and also protecting our students and giving them the kind of teachers that they deserve, especially in an environment where we know we have deficiencies," she stressed.

 

The education minister rebutted concerns about costly development programmes for teachers. 

 

"One of the interesting things which we've missed in a lot of the conversation is that the Jamaica Teaching Council exists and it is doing professional development training for teachers and we're doing it free. So it's not as if it's a new complete regime in the ministry. We have the JTC acting as a division in the ministry. I think we're looking at a lot of hypotheticals, and I think we need to look at the real facts. The JTC exists and the JTC does tons of professional development training now that is free for the teachers," noted the minister. 

 

Dr. Morris Dixon was speaking in an interview on Radio Jamaica's Beyond the Headlines, with host Dionne Jackson Miller, on Wednesday.