Teacher Registration
The decision by the Minister of Education, the Honourable Andrew Holness, to require all teachers to be registered seems to me to be a strange one. The first area of concern is why the teachers? Policemen, firemen, doctors, nurses and other public workers will not be required to register. There seems to be the perception that by registering teachers the quality of teaching will improve. However, it is not registration of teachers that will solve our problems in education it is ensuring that only qualified persons are employed to teach.
I have been stressing that a part of finance is ensuring that good governance takes place. The job of monitoring the teachers belongs to the principals of the schools. They in turn should be accountable to the school board which ensures that all relevant reports are sent to the Ministry of Education. It is not the job of government to monitor individual teachers but to monitor the performance of the school as a whole. This could cause a problem to teachers as to recognizing to whom they are accountable. If the recommendations of the monitoring body are different from the directions of the principal then which should be followed?
Another consideration is whether there will be a cost to the teacher of registering with the ministry and what will the process involve. If the ministry is going to have a system of registration which is inefficient and takes months to register a teacher then this will create other problems. Teachers are already underpaid and if they are then required to pay a registration fee out of their small pay then there could be significant opposition. The cost of implementing and monitoring this system has to be bourne by someone. At a time when resources are scarce this seems to be money that will not be well spent.
The role of leadership is to set the direction that one wishes to go and to set in place persons who will carry out those directives. A system then has to be established to monitor the outcome to see if the objectives are being met. If the objectives are not being met the corrective action should be taken. It is too easy an idea to want to monitor the individuals but true leadership relies on getting all parties working together to achieve the stated objectives. Let the principals monitor the teachers, the job of the ministry is to focus on the schools.
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Why register ? I dont get it, does JA even have a nurses registry? When they register is Holness going to load them up on his yacht for
mini-vacations
I became a teacher in 1986 and upon my graduation, I was automatically registered with the Ministry of Education. That is what my college said would happen and that is what happened. I was surprized to hear in recent times, “recommendation that teachers be registered”. If the existing registration process was so insignificant that no one in authority knew it existed then what is going to make it significant now? I believe it will suffer the same fate as the registration process before it. I do not know of another jurisdiction where teachers are registered by the ministry. All jurisdiction worth recognizing or emulating have teachers registered by the teachers’ association and no one sets foot in a class room there unless certified by the existing teachers’ association. Unfortunately it would be a travesty to have the JTA manage teacher registration in Jamaica.
Also, other jurisdictions (except the Caribbean), politicians have very little direct power over education. Where politicians have all this direct power, education becomes a political football and that is one of the problems with education in Jamaica.
The sooner politicians take their political hands off our education system, it will prosper as it should
In your article titled Registration of Teachers on the gleaner website you mentioned that policemen, firemen and nurses are not registered. Well you have got it wrong. I graduated in 1992 as a Registered Nurse and I had to register with the Nursing Association of Jamaica. Please check your facts again.
Inez, just like the JTA I do not think it is no mandatory that you register with NAJ; I could be wrong though. But with the JTA it is an option. Also, I think the registration that is being spoken to is not about being affiliated with a body that speaks to your professions issues but one that says you are duly qualified and competent to be a teacher. In the USA teachers must register with their state boards and are issued a certificate which allows to be able to teach any where in the country, Without it you cannot teach and if you are found in breach your certificate will be revoke and you will no longer be able to teach. I think this is the same for their nurses and doctors as well