Education Minister Fayval Williams says she has committed to improving the infrastructure of schools across the island as part of her ministry’s efforts to transform the education sector.

She gave this commitment during a panel discussion at the 10th Biennial Diaspora Conference on Tuesday, June 18.

“Many of you from the diaspora visited our schools, and I am sure you are not satisfied with the physical infrastructure of our schools that you see, and so we have to accelerate the physical development of our schools so that our children, our teachers, and our administrators are working and learning in comfortable environments because that impacts your learning as well,” she noted.

Meanwhile, the education minister said it is also important to provide teachers and students with the necessary resources.

“We have to ensure that all our children across Jamaica and our teachers have access to technology, and so, coming out of the pandemic, the last few years we held on to the gains to technology because, as you know, Jamaica was able to transition and pivot into the virtual space during the pandemic. Approximately all of our students were able to remain connected to the education system, so we came out of that with gains in terms of technology, and we are accelerating those gains,” Williams stated.

She said two-thirds of the island’s schools have broadband connectivity, while all teachers from the primary to secondary level have a laptop computer.

“All of our technology labs in all of our high schools in Jamaica were upgraded, and e-Learning can talk about that with brand new state-of-the art laptops and connectivity in those labs as well. We have mountains of e-resources for our students and our teachers; the issue now is to get them to use more fully all that is available to them,” the minister said.

While noting that it will take some time to achieve these transformation goals, she noted that the government has committed funds to assist the sector in achieving its goals.