The Justice Training Institute (JTI) has strengthened its capacity to train court reporters and steno writers with the recent donation of 15 stenography machines and 15 laptops under the Social Justice (So-JUST) Project.
The donation was made possible through funding partner Global Affairs Canada (GAC), and implementing partner United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). It will allow persons who successfully complete the court reporting programme to facilitate the timely delivery of justice services specifically within the courts and across other sectors.
Director and principal of the JTI, Karen Campbell-Bascoe, says “the laptops and stenography machines are what the students will be using to learn the skill, therefore, having the equipment is necessary for the training programme to happen…”
She added: “Court reporters and steno writers, with this advanced skill, are able to instantly convert the spoken word into information that becomes available for use, and to do so at an accuracy rate of 95 per cent and above.”
The diploma in court reporting programme, offered by JTI, aims to increase the number of court reporters and steno writers available to serve within the jurisdiction to include the Court of Appeal, Supreme Court, as well as the Industrial Disputes Tribunal, Office of the Services Commission, Jamaica Defence Force, and the Houses of Parliament, and any other entity requiring the production and use of a transcript.
In order to receive certification at the end of the two-year programme, participants are expected to be able to write at speeds of up to 225 words per minute with at least 95 per cent accuracy; having been exposed to real-time steno writing, vocabulary development in the English language, court proceedings in both criminal and civil law, parliamentary proceedings, among other areas.
Participants are also required to learn and retain Latin, medical and other general terminologies, as these may arise during court proceedings, and are taught how to navigate reporting where there is complexity on the English/Jamaican Patois continuum, as this is a major feature across the courts in Jamaica.
The JTI is the training arm of the Ministry of Justice. Its training courses are geared towards staff development and capacity building within Jamaica’s justice sector in accordance with international standards.
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