NPTAJ welcomes planned school board reform but wants status quo for church schools

 

President of the National Parent-Teacher Association of Jamaica (NPTAJ), Stewart Jacobs, has welcomed the pending reform of the school board system, but maintains that Trusts and church schools must retain the right to choose their own boards.

 

The Education Transformation Oversight Committee (ETOC) on Wednesday announced that it is driving an active reform in the composition of public school boards.

 

"Anecdotally, schools with strong boards tend to perform better than those with dysfunctional boards," ETOC Chairman Dr. Adrian Stokes said Wednesday at the committee's quarterly press briefing.

 

In February, classes were halted at St. James High School following an incident between the principal and the chairman of the school board who have been at odds for three years.

 

Outlining the pending school board reform, the ETOC Chair stressed the need for competence, intellectual diversity and rules for board quorum, adding that the method of choosing boards is important.  

 

"With this in mind, a major effort is underway to reform our school boards in Jamaica. Two types of reforms are being pursued. One, improving the cadre of persons seeking to serve on school boards. To achieve this, we are making the application process for serving on a school board very transparent, similar to what obtains in the wider public sector," he noted.

 

Dr. Stokes said individuals who wish to serve will upload their curriculum vitae and other information to a website managed by the Ministry of Education, and their application will be vetted to ensure they are fit and proper, with the ultimate goal of matching competences to the specific needs of schools.

 

The second half of the reform of school boards relates to legislative changes, said the ETOC Chair.  

 

"Currently, the composition of government-operated school boards can lead to a perverse result where a school can effectively govern itself. This means that members from a school who are appointed to the board can effectively control

the board's decisions. This is an obvious conflict and goes against well established good governance principles. The goal is to ensure that the rules applicable to government-run schools are similar to those that apply to church-run schools," he explained.

 

Speaking with Radio Jamaica News on Thursday morning, Mr. Jacobs agreed that board members must be competent. 

 

"There was a time when it was suggested that all school boards, chairmen, not private school board, would be appointed by the Member of Parliament in that particular constituency. We vehemently said, no. There's no way you can have a member parliament choosing the board chairman of a church school. That is a no-no. It is the church that must appoint their board chair, a percentage of that board must come from the church, it must be appointed by the church, because that is how the church is going to one, protect itself, maintain its ethos, and to ensure that the property that belongs to them and the legacy that they have is ensured," Mr. Jacobs maintained. 

 

In a Gleaner report in February, Mr. Jacobs said approximately 256 schools across Jamaica are owned by churches and trusts, and these schools generally outperform those owned by the government.