Wright against incentivising some teachers to stem migration

By Racquel Porter 

   

President of the Jamaica Association of Principals of Secondary Schools, Linvern Wright, is not in support of providing special incentives to some educators to stem teacher migration.

 

Providing more incentives for educators was among the suggestions of JTA's immediate past president, Leighton Johnson, to encourage teachers to remain in the classroom.

 

But Mr. Wright says that approach, which would single out teachers of particular subjects, is problematic because "every single subject is important". 

 

"My thing is just to treat teachers well, not just with pay, but with the conditions of the service. And the conditions of service include so many things. A condition of service, yes it includes money because a teacher wants to live. But that's not the number one thing. I think the camaraderie people have when they go to work. What's happening between you and your colleague? What's happening between you and parents? What's happening between you and principal? Is it that we're abusing teachers too much as a country? Is it that we are diminishing our sense of what authority should mean on behalf of a child who's growing up? Teachers are frustrated with that kind of thing," he argued.  

 

Mr. Wright, who is the principal of William Knibb Memorial High School, noted that he lost six of eight mathematics teachers over a three-year period. He contended that the continuous replacement of teachers affects the quality of teaching. 

 

"It's not even to blame the young teachers who come because they need time. They need time to understand the syllabus, understand the exams, understand how to teach better. It takes time. So they're not going to be where those teachers who have four or five years' experience were. So it's going to take them some time to match up," he acknowledged. 

 

To that end, he called for new teachers to get greater support in delivering the curriculum.