Prime Minister Andrew Holness has announced that plans are being made to strategically transform the Education sector to equip students with the skill sets that will be needed to compete on a global stage as well as eradicate inequity that is found within.
This was disclosed during yesterday’s sitting of Parliament, where Prime Minister shared upcoming plans that will be aimed at propelling Jamaica in a direction of change
This transformation, as highlighted by Holness, will change how one accesses information, communicates and learns.
“We are concurrently embarking on a systemic transformation of our education system to address three fundamental issues: The first is the quality of education and alignment with the future job market,” Prime Minister Holness noted.
“We must endow Jamaica’s youth not only with the technical skills that they need but the self-confidence and belief that it is not beyond them to develop the next great innovation, the next Google or Apple, or find the cure for cancer, right here in Jamaica,” he added.
Holness also indicated that plans are being facilitated by the government to transform Jamaica as a technology and innovation hub.
So far, the Government in partnership with the Amber group and Digicel, has launched a Coding in Schools program that will be geared towards elevating the technology path of Jamaican students.
In addition, coding will be taught will be taught from Grade 1 to Grade 13 across all public schools and youth will gain basic numeracy, language and problem-solving skills, which are the prerequisites for coding.
Prime Minister Holness has also noted that there will also be a restorative component added to the new model that will be aimed at entrenching societal mores and values.
“The second core objective of education transformation is the restoration of our societal values. Over the past decades, there has been an erosion in the moral fabric of our society and the basic norms of decency and civility that once characterized us as a nation. Verbal and physical abuse, vulgarity and barbarity are becoming far too commonplace in our inter-personal interactions. We have socialized an entire generation into normalizing violence. This is at the root of our epidemic,” he noted.
“A key component of our educational curriculum must be focused on developing the socio-emotional intelligence, competencies and skills that will enable us individually and as a people to accomplish great and complex tasks productively with a pro-growth and pro-social mindset while managing our emotions in social transactions to resolve conflict without violence,” he added.
