Ministry of Education

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Minister of Education, Hon. Andrew Holness

Minister of Education, Andrew Holness is confident that Jamaica's literacy rate will show marked improvement over the next five years, resulting from the Ministry's literacy programmes, coupled with the anticipated increase in parental involvement.

He stressed that the programmes would come to nothing, "if parents do not become involved in their children's education, and fail to provide a good environment that encourages learning." He therefore urged parents to give children "support and encouragement."

The Minister was addressing a recent JIS 'Think Tank', at the agency's head office at 58A Half-Way Tree Road in Kingston.

"If the parents of these children (who are not reading at their grade level) do not pull their weight, support them through their learning difficulties, read to them, and in a sense become their reading pal, then our programmes would be of no avail," Mr. Holness argued.

"I am confident, positive and optimistic that we will achieve high literacy rates within the next five years, as a result of the measures taken by the previous Government and the new measures we are taking now," he added.

The Minister lauded the development and implementation of literacy programmes targeted at Grades One to Three at the Primary level. He cited, in particular, Literacy 1-2-3, a programme, which was designed to guide teachers in their methods of teaching reading, writing and comprehension.

Pointing to other literacy programmes, the Minister mentioned the Expanding Educational Horizons (EEH) project, which is aimed at raising the literacy level of Grades One to Four students within 71 primary schools across the country.

He said that while there was a cost to Literacy 1-2-3, as well as the EEH, these were provided with funding. Similarly, while there was a cost to administer the literacy and numeracy tests at a national level, the figure was not significant. "The major cost," the Minister pointed out, "will come when students cannot pass the bar. The question then is, 'What happens to them?'" These students, Mr. Holness noted, were being specially targeted for literacy intervention programmes. He implored parents to give special attention to these students.

Highlighting the intervention programmes that were now in place, the Minister explained that students could get help at Grade Three, following the Diagnostic Test. At Grade Four when the test shows that there are definite weaknesses, the Grade Four Literacy intervention is introduced, while at Grades Five and Six when they still have not achieved mastery, additional interventions are implemented. The Minister said this situation could be different with greater parental involvement.

"If a child is not reading by age 12 (Grade Six) something is wrong," Mr. Holness said. "It means that special attention ought to be paid to that child," he added.

"It's a trade off," he argued. "We are going to pay a price if we send that child into the secondary system and that child is not able to access the secondary curriculum, because it presupposes that child can read and write and is numerate."

The Minister said that in this circumstance, the students would not be able to benefit from a secondary education, if they have not developed the literacy skills at the primary level, but "we will pay a cost in the disruptive behaviour of the child." He added that invariably, children who are not able to read and write express that frustration in inappropriate behaviour, which disrupts the learning environment.

"We either pay the cost for frustrating the secondary system or we provide for them in the primary system, where primary resources are already dedicated to achieving the result of literacy," he said.

Mr. Holness stressed that, "where we are already spending the money, they have to deliver the results. It makes no sense to spend money that really ought to deliver results at the primary level and then spend money again at the secondary level to achieve the same results."

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