Education Ministry pursuing strategies to address teacher migration

 

 

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Dr. Kasan Troupe, says the government is pursuing new strategies to address teacher migration and strengthen education workforce. 

 

Speaking Thursday at the Higher Education Leadership Conference, held in Hanover, Dr. Troupe highlighted teacher migration as one of the sector's biggest challenges. 

 

Dr. Troupe said one solution is to attract more international students to Jamaica's teacher's colleges, helping to expand enrolment while generating additional revenue for the institutions. 

 

"A number of international spaces want our teachers. They go to England, they go to Japan, they go to the United States, and sometimes create a crisis for us right here in Jamaica. Now we want our tertiary sector, our teacher's colleges, to look at how we can bring people into Jamaica to benefit from our programme of learning, so we can benefit from them right here in Jamaica. So we want to export the excellence of our teacher's colleges into the global space and see how Jamaica can benefit from that in terms of building the synergies with international colleges and bringing home other programmes that we need to modernise our sector that have already been built," she explained.

 

Dr. Troupe added that the government remains committed to implementing measures aimed at retaining teachers while ensuring the country's education system has the personnel needed to meet growing demands. 

 

"Also, we are trying to help our colleges to adapt and to collaborate. So we're asking you to give up some of the programmes that you don't really need or allow those programmes to move in the particular colleges that have the expertise to do that. So that's a simple thing, like probably staying in our lane a little bit, focusing on the intentions of that area. So we want our community colleges to focus on becoming community colleges, creating access to tertiary learning at an affordable rate in partnership with the universities, in the local spaces where the young people are. So we want to give access all over Jamaica," the permanent secretary suggested.

 

She said the goal is to strengthen the tertiary education ecosystem, making it better equipped to serve students and support a more sustainable education system.