‘EDUCATION EMERGENCY’

DECLARING that Jamaica is facing an “education emergency”, president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) La Sonja Harrison is urging the Government to implement a five-year national learning recovery and acceleration plan to tackle the existing gaps in the sector.

But Harrison is adamant that the five-year initiative must put educators at the forefront of the conversation.

“If it is as educators, we are the first responders, we are the people on the ground, I am saying that there can be no conversation about how we go nationally without the teachers in a meaningful way. And I’m not talking about us, leaders of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association, I’m talking about the people who are on the ground, the foot soldiers, and the people on whom you will depend [on] anyway to carry out whatever vision you have for education.