Summer school a waste of time –JTA
SEVENTEEN THOUSAND students and 3,000 teachers have signed up for the national summer school programme amid a dispute over its value.
Sixty-year-old vendor Hyacinth Miller believes that her nieces and nephews in Trelawny will benefit from state-sponsored extra lessons after they dropped out of online school because of Internet connectivity woes.
“Remember seh dem lost out from last year, suh fi keep up pon certain things, it woulda good,” Miller told The Gleaner on Thursday.
But Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) President Jasford Gabriel is doubtful that students will come on board with the Government’s recently announced national summer school and homework programme, which is intended to close the yawning gap in learning suffered amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The students will not come to any summer programme, and we said that from the very beginning. Even if you go and find them, tradition tells us that they are not in any mental state to do anything in the summer, so the resources will be wasted,” Gabriel told The Gleaner on Wednesday.
Gabriel has suggested that the Government roll out a robust education campaign when the new academic year begins in September.
The JTA president was responding to Education Minister Fayval Williams’ announcement on Tuesday that the Government’s national summer school programme will begin on Monday, July 5. The so-called Recover Smarter National School Learning and Intervention Plan consists of summer school, extra lessons, and a homework programme.
The programme will depend on current and retired volunteer teachers.
A grade three teacher who requested anonymity said that summer school would not be feasible for children who live in inner-city communities.
And Roxanne Mills, from Tower Avenue, located west of Cockburn Gardens in St Andrew, said that her daughter, who is in grade four, has had issues focusing during online classes.
Miller said she would be open to her child attending summer school but would rather that she do so in person.
“Face to face would be good. Some kids learn better in a group, and them focus more, and teacher is talking on the blackboard and everybody is in tune,”Mills told The Gleaner.
The Ministry of Education has estimated that 120,000 students have missed, or rarely attended, formal classes since schools were shuttered in March 2020, but some stakeholders put the number as high as 150,000.
Gabriel said that while the plan is good in theory, the nub of concern is in the execution.
“Our big issue is what role our teachers would be required to play because they were not going to go out to any summer school. But the Government found a way around that, so we are not going to trouble what they are doing,” said Gabriel.
Opposition Spokesman on Education Angela Brown Burke has expressed concern that the voluntary nature of summer school may lead to those who are most needful of intervention opting out of the programme.
She renewed her call for meaningful consultations with principals and teachers to address deficiencies that have contributed to student underperformance and disengagement.
“What will be done to ensure that the programmes offered can also be accessed by those students without connectivity and/or devices or who lack family support to facilitate their participation?” Brown Burke asked.