Principals group says announcement of notable decline in teacher resignations premature

 

President of the Jamaica Association of Principals and Vice Principals, Jennifer Williams, says the Education Ministry's recent announcement of a significant decline in teacher resignations of this year is premature.

 

Permanent Secretary in the Education Ministry, Dr. Kasan Troupe, made the announcement last Friday during the press conference for the 2025 Caribbean Examination Council results. 

 

However, Ms. Williams noted that most resignation letters are usually submitted in the last week of August for various reasons.

 

"Usually, we would see the resignation letters coming in at the end of August, so that would be more next week, because persons are still finalising with the schools that they are going to overseas or with whichever company they are going to overseas. They are finalising with the embassies, they are finalising with the schools," she explained.

 

In May to August 2022, 852 teachers resigned. 

 

During the same period in 2023, the figure fell to 489. 

 

In 2024, only 135 teachers resigned between May and August. 

 

Ms. Williams called for the government to implement mechanisms that will retain Jamaica's teachers.

 

"It would be good to have the government making very good offerings for persons who enter the teachers' colleges so that we will have more teachers. And when I say making the offerings attractive, giving scholarships, probably paying 50% of the tuition so that they would want to become teachers. And then we will have more persons entering that field," she suggested.

 

Ms. Williams was speaking Thursday on Radio Jamaica's Beyond the Headlines.