Minister of Education and Youth Fayval Williams has admitted that there is an urgent need to improve the fundamentals in literacy and numeracy so that students’ Mathematics and English scores can improve.

There has been calls from Opposition spokesperson on education Damion Crawford for an overhaul of the education system following the poor performance in the Caribbean Secondary Education (CSEC) exams. Only some 38.9 per cent of students passed the exam, while only 18 per cent of students passed five subjects or more.

According to Crawford, the poor performance in the subject areas is due to a lack of remedial efforts to improve students’ proficiency in the subject area from the primary level.

Williams said her ministry is now doubling down on key areas such as increasing teacher quality and effectiveness, providing an inclusive teaching and learning environment, among other things.

“To achieve this, the focus has been on increasing teacher quality and effectiveness, increasing the relevance of curriculum, assessment and the teaching and learning experience, providing inclusive teaching and learning environments and appropriate support services. So far Madam Speaker, the Ministry of Education & Youth has fully funded software licenses for students to use; the Book Fusion app, the Learning Hub platform for Grades 4, the Cheetah platform for Grades 4-6 and these platforms have the resources that are available for ordinary classes as well as exams,” the minister noted.

Additionally, she said some 8,000 laptops are being procured for primary schools and 810 interactive whiteboards are also being procured for infant, primary, secondary, and colleges.

“There has also been a strong focus on training in partnership with the Jamaica Teaching Council (JTC), the Ministry of Education &Youth’s Core Curriculum Unit and IDB partners. Nine additional courses have been onboarded to the JTC’s Learning Management System and more than 12,000 teachers trained across various topics,” Williams added.

Williams gave the update while speaking in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, October 1.