Jamaica’s school administrators are preparing for the effects of a predicted mass migration of teachers during the summer holidays as hundreds of educators are traveling abroad in search of better career possibilities before the start of the new school year.
Linvern Wright, president of the Jamaica Association of Principals of Secondary Schools (JAPSS), stated that a sense of dread has overtaken principals, who are now frantically working with their boards to see how the blow can be cushioned, with less than three weeks before the start of the 2022–2023 academic year.
He said the situation was so serious that administrators were unable to determine an accurate estimate for the number of instructors leaving the local classrooms to accept positions abroad, even though reports indicate that the number may be as high as 400.
This is because a prominent school has lost 23 of 100 teachers, while another institution is on the verge of losing 16 teachers, according to Wright, who is also the principal of the William Knibb High School in Trelawny.
Likewise, Richard Dennis, National Parent-Teacher Association of Jamaica (NPTAJ) adviser for the Ministry of Education and Youth’s Region Four is unable to estimate the number of teachers who will be leaving.
He said parents are aware that some teachers are considering resigning but are awaiting a response from the various overseas entities to their job applications.
The ongoing situation has forced schools to come up with innovative solutions, which include sharing teachers. This has been the case for York Castle and Brown’s Town High Schools in St. Ann, which share teachers and rotate lecturers across their many compounds.
If teachers cannot be located before September, some courses may be canceled, according to school officials.
In light of the mass exodus, the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) is urging the government to break its silence and communicate its solution to the problem.
Former Clarendon North Western Member of Parliament Richard Azan raised concerns about a teacher shortage in the classrooms when the new school year begins next month at the PNP’s Trelawny Southern constituency conference on Sunday at the Albert Town High School.
“In the next week or two [schools are going to] open and comrades many of the schools are going to be without teachers. The amount of the teachers leaving Jamaica and I don’t hear the Ministry of Education saying anything about it. They say some subjects they won’t have them again come September,” Azan said.
He lamented that “our better teachers are going away, and we are not talking about it.”
“Our children are going to suffer. And we have to use this meeting tonight (Sunday) and call on the government. We have to do something for our teachers because we have to save our country, the children are our future and I don’t hear anybody talking about that in the government,” Azan said.
