PRESIDENT WENTWORTH GABBIDON'S ADDRESS TO THE 39TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE JTA AUG. 18-20, 2003, HELD AT THE RENNAISSANCE JAMAICA GRANDE RESORT OCHO RIOS

• Mr. Chairman
• Immediate Past President of the JTA, Mrs. Sadie Comrie
• Past President, Mr. Paul Adams and Mrs. Adams
• Hon. Maxine Henry-Wilson, Minister of Education, Youth and Culture
• Hon. Radcliffe Walters, Custos Rotolorum, St. Ann
• Secretary General, Dr. Adolph Cameron
• Past Presidents
• Members of Staff of the Secretariat
• Colleagues
• Other distinguished ladies and gentlemen on the platform and in the audience.

The theme for this year's conference is Promoting Positive Values and Attitudes Through Education. This was carefully chosen as the Association realized that every institution has to be part of the collaborative effort to promote positive values and attitudes through education.

The Association is concerned about the decline of standards in the society, the feeling that anything goes, that mediocrity can be tolerated must be stopped immediately. Our children who are the future have been exposed to lewd behaviour by D'Jays on stage, some of the movies shown on television and they also learn from our behaviour.

The coarseness which is now pervading the society, indiscipline on the roads, the loud music blaring from the motor vehicles as they travel along the street, are all part of the negative things which influence the culture of crudity and coarseness.

It is the challenge for all stakeholders in the education sector, the church, all well-thinking Jamaicans to join hands immediately towards the forming of a more humane society where moral values and attitudes are the ideal. We should present ourselves as role models for our children. Let us take back the country from where it is today. Gone are the days when the teacher, the preacher and other persons who shaped character were seen as the role models in the society but things have changed so much. Is it any wonder that we face the current predicament?

There are some basic things that all of us need to instill in our children and to practice as adults; the importance of time, the value of hard work and honesty.
Adults, including us as teachers, should lead by example. Rather than by telling children what to do, we should show them how to do it. So often we behave in ways that are contrary to what we say.
I realize that I may be sounding more like a preacher than a teacher, but I submit that a teacher cannot but be a preacher in the best sense of the term. The truth is that we are not giving enough attention to creating character in our children. The ancient instruction, "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it", is still relevant today.

We strongly believe that the early years are the best time to inculcate basic attitudes and values. We need to create the foundation before we are able to build on it. This will be part of the focus of the education conference the Association hopes to host in March 2004.
Children will learn most of the values and attitudes, which they will take with them through life, in the 0-5 age group. We, therefore, need to focus on reaching them at this age and stage, before it is too late.
We know the truth of the saying that a chain is no stronger than its weakest link. Given the collapse of the family unit in our society, early childhood education takes on even greater importance if we are to see any improvement in the Primary, Secondary and Tertiary levels of the system.
At the primary, secondary and tertiary levels, we will be able to achieve so much more if the right foundation is laid in the minds of each child.
Much of the problems we have today with crime and violence, school drop outs and underachievement among the young in our population are directly connected to an absence of discipline, a lack of respect for authority and an inability to commit to and to keep one's word.
So few want to commit to keeping promises and reaching goals, and I daresay it has to do with the values, which we were taught in the home and sometimes in classrooms. It has been said that children live what they learn and further that they learn what they live but I want to add that children learn what the adults live. So as adults when we tell our children, for example, to be honest or to show respect for authority and we act contrary to these precepts we become a confusing contradiction to them.
As we focus on the building of the right foundation, we must also be concerned with creating and maintaining of minimum standards within the teaching and learning environments if we are to achieve the goal of a quality education system.
In many schools we do not see the tables, desks and chairs, the stationary supplies, projectors and other equipment that our teachers need to get their job of educating children done. While in many others existing furniture is inappropriate for the age group to which they are assigned. I therefore, call on the Government to provide the necessary furniture, materials and equipment to properly equip the schools for the task they have to accomplish.
Additionally, in this age of technology, there are still not enough computers available in the schools. Some schools have the minimum of one computer while others are still without. There is also the matter of dilapidated or non-existent science laboratories, and libraries, which are inadequately stocked.

At the schools where reading rooms have been established, where computer labs have been installed, and where libraries have been improved and science laboratories upgraded or added, we have been getting reports of better teaching outcomes. Such an upgrading should be done in a systematic way across the board so that no one school should be perceived as better equipped than another.

We call upon the government to pay more than lip service to the matter of ensuring that new high schools are of the same standard as traditional institutions. Primary schools, which in many cases have too many students and too few teachers, also have to be given the appropriate staff to properly prepare the students for the secondary level

The remaining All Age schools need special attention to bring the grade seven to nine programme in line with the lower end of secondary institutions. The Ministry needs to decide now what will happen to these schools, identify those that will be upgraded to junior high and those to be used as primary. This is crucial for both medium and long term planning for these institutions.

I must take this opportunity to, once again, call for the provision of support staff in all educational institutions. If education is priority then we must see the appointment of clerical, administrative and janitorial staff in all schools as well as watching service and other security personnel and facilities where needed. A guidance counsellor, culture agent, and specialist teachers in music, physical education and visual arts must also be made available to all schools.

The appointment of vice principals and other posts of responsibility in the schools is crucial to the effective administration of the system. Every school should have at least one teacher with a Post of Special Responsibility (senior teacher). It is a tragedy that in this day and age there are educational institutions where there is no recognized deputy for the principal. In these small schools the teacher is required to do the work but is not considered for appropriate remuneration.

As a nation we need to retain our best teachers in the system. We must, therefore, provide a level of remuneration that will stem the flow to foreign lands. We must attend to the small schools where the principals are designated full-time class teachers as well as administrators with no clerical or administrative staff and, as mentioned above, in some cases not even a teacher with a post of special responsibility. I am saying that no principal should be asked to teach full-time, no matter the size of the institution.

I am now calling on principals to make the necessary recommendations for the appointment of teachers to post of special responsibility wherever vacancies exist, based on the current formula. While we make representation for those small schools without existing vacancies in larger schools must be filled.

There is also a need to take a serious look at what the reality is in terms of the teacher/pupil ratio as well as the many overcrowded classrooms. Recently, Sheila Garcia-Bisnott, writing in the Daily Gleaner, noted the PIOJ'S `Economic and Social Survey Jamaica`, which said that the ratio of students to teachers in primary level schools is 32 to one, and in secondary level schools, 20 to one; a condition of recent years at least.

The truth, however is that in real terms the size of classes which teach the core subjects is mostly near 40 and over in secondary institutions. The survey also shows the school capacity in secondary institutions to be approximately 150,000 while enrolment is almost 244,000.

Overcrowding and large class size also exist at the primary level. There are still some classes with as many as sixty students. To quote from Mrs. Garcia Bisnott, "crowding is greater than most people imagine, especially that most of these schools do not operate a shift system." This situation is a gross injustice to the students and the teachers involved and must be corrected if we are talking about minimum standards.

We are advocating for a teacher/pupil ratio of 1:15 at the Early Childhood level, 1:25 at the Primary level and 1:20 at the Secondary level. We suggest that the size of large school populations be reduced to more manageable levels. At the same time, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture needs to take a serious look at the Shift System to determine whether or not it has contributed to the breakdown in discipline among our students.

At the same time as we look at the issue of material supplies and overcrowding, we also need to move towards the implementation of Appraisal systems based on the required minimum standards for performance in schools. You cannot measure what does not exist, therefore, the required inputs must be made before one begins to measure performance.

If excellence is our goal and if this is the outcome that we desire at all levels, then clear standards must be outlined, not only so that we can judge how much we as teachers are keeping to them, but also so that the quality of the teaching product can be assured. Where there are no standards, people do their own thing and also there will be no basis on which to assess each teacher for professional development and promotional advancement.

To reinforce the seriousness with which the Association views the matter of standards and professional orientation as part of my Presidential Programme. I will be introducing the first phase of a Mentorship Programme for new teachers to further enhance the professional development, positive values and attitudes and promote the appropriate culture and ethics and tune for these young professionals entering the profession. This will be done at the national level. Schools will also be encouraged to have their own mentorship programme. This will be in addition to the New Teachers' Seminars put on by the Jamaica Teachers' Association.

Another very critical programme that will be introduced this year is a leadership training programme for young leaders in the Association. The main aim is to have a professional cadre of young leaders. This is one of the succession planning tools that is being used by the Association to ensure quality leadership at all levels.
We must also look at the issue of qualifications. We would wish to see an increase in the number of teachers with graduate and post-graduate qualifications. It is expected that a teacher at the secondary level should be trained to equivalent of a first the degree. In most cases preparation to the level of teachers' college is distinctly inadequate for teaching most subjects to meet high school requirements at their most basic.

We must also look at what is happening in our teachers' colleges. Training colleges prepare people to teach; courses in the subject area may be adequate for persons who plan to teach at the primary level, but those hoping to teach at high school level should get additional specialist training. This would enable them to effectively prepare students for advance level education.

A teacher needs to know considerably more about the subject area than the child's examination requires, to be able to effectively lead the students to appreciate the experience, to reason in the subject area, to derive benefit from learning it, to be educated in it.

The story is told of a teacher, who, in trying to make use of her psychology courses, started her class by saying, "Everyone who thinks you're stupid, stand up!" After a few seconds, Little Johnny stood up. The teacher said, "Do you think you're stupid, Little Johnny?" "No, ma'am, but I hate to see you standing there all by yourself!"
This should never be our position - a position where we find ourselves viewed as inadequately prepared by those in our classes, where we find ourselves being stumped by the questions asked by our students, - unable to meet their basic needs for information and instruction.

And as we look at the issue of teacher training, I would here like to say that the Jamaica Teachers Association would like to see a four-year bachelor of Education programme at the Teachers' College. This should incorporate general teacher training for the first two years and specialization for the remaining two. By increasing the depth of training for our teachers, we can only improve our teaching outcomes. This is even more urgent in light of the Government's commitment guaranteeing five years of secondary education to all entrants to grade seven as at September 2003.

Recently professor Errol Miller, Director of the Centre of Excellence for Teacher Training (CETT) project, said that common tests and standards for reading are being developed for Primary Schools in the Caribbean. We hope to have this implemented quickly and to see a similar scheme developed for teachers at the secondary level.
As we challenge and encourage our teachers to constantly upgrade their skills and knowledge base, I call on the Ministry to ensure that they are remunerated for the effort in time and money spent. The MOEYC and the University Council of Jamaica must ensure that institutions offering training programmes are properly accredited and abide by set guidelines. We cannot allow our teachers to start or complete programmes that are said to be accredited and then tell them that they will not get paid because there is a problem with the institution or programme.

I began this presentation by addressing the issue of building the correct foundation and I will end by re-emphasizing this.

We must lay the groundwork in values and attitudes, and provide adequate materials and equipment for schools, making sure also that those who are career educators are properly trained and adequately remunerated.

Without these basic building blocks - it is a certainty that we will fail. Let us begin to do the right things in the right way, building for us all a stronger foundation.
Let us promise ourselves that during this new school year, we will do our part in schools and classrooms. Promoting positive values and attitudes within our schools and classrooms.

Long live Jamaica land we love. Long live the JTA as we UNITE and SERVE.

Wentworth Gabbidon
President