Education ministry to place greater attention on non-reading students

WESTERN BUREAU:

Education Minister Dr Dana Morris Dixon says she will be making sure that the measures her ministry is now instituting to ensure students are able to read at their grade levels are strictly enforced in the nation’s schools.

Speaking at the just-concluded Jamaica Teachers’ Association’s (JTA) 61st annual conference in Montego Bay, St James, Morris Dixon said students’ ability to read continues to be a recurring concern for teachers and the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information (MOE)

“I find it so strange that we would ask our teachers to teach all these things to children who cannot read. What is the point? It is not that we are not ambitious, but the foundation is key, and if you do not have the foundation right, then whatever you try to build is going to crumble. That is why we are focusing on literacy so much this year,” said Morris Dixon.

“We are going to be working really hard on this issue of literacy, because it is at the crux of everything, even mathematics. We are going to have enhanced reading classes, and the MOE has done a good job of printing some new booklets, which we will be giving to our children so that they will have books in their hands,” continued Morris Dixon. “If you know you have children who cannot read, we are going to have to change up the syllabus and make sure our children can read.”

The MOE had previously announced that reading would be reintroduced to the primary-school timetable for the upcoming academic term in September, in response to the literacy crisis impacting schools across Jamaica.

BELOW PAR

That announcement followed a Gleaner report that revealed that more than 70 per cent of the 220 grade-seven students at Pembroke Hall High School in Kingston could not read, or were reading only at a grade-three level, with some being unable to identify letters of the alphabet.

Morris Dixon also noted that one issue affecting children’s learning ability is their lack of adequate rest, arising from possible social media and smartphone addiction. She said that this is an area where parents need to intervene and regulate their children’s phone usage.

“We give the children the phones, which is not going to help their cognitive development, and our children are coming to school tired in the mornings because of the devices. I have spoken to guidance counsellors and psychologists who are working with our children, and one of the alarm bells they are raising is how tired the children are in the days. That does not make them ready to learn,” said Morris Dixon.

“That is where we talk about the parenting, because we have to teach our parents these things. If you want to have the best from our children, we are going to have to make sure they get sleep,” the minister added.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com