The JLP will implement LEARN (Learning and Education Reform for Nation Building) a comprehensive programme to increase funding, reform the curricula, and improve school infrastructure and teacher training, in order to produce more literate and educated students.

CURRENT SITUATION:

POOR PERFORMANCE

Most Basic Schools for 3 – 5 year old students are poorly equipped, poorly staffed, and are accommodated in inferior structures with inadequate space.

It is estimated that some 30% of students leave primary school illiterate and that some 20% leave secondary school unable to read or write properly.

LEARN:

THE EDUCATION

REFORM PLAN

Education Reform must take place at each level of development . . .

Early Childhood Education

#1 Upgrade basic schools and bring them fully into the government school system.

#2 Free basic school education with the provision of financing a comprehensive plan to integrate delivery of service, care and management.

#3 Build 70 new stand alone infant schools and refurbish sub-standard schools and resource centres.

#4 Enroll 100% of 3 - 5 year old children in early childhood schools and ensure full attendance.

#5 Upgrade all pre-trained teachers and ensure that instructors at teachers’ colleges have at least a master’s degree.

#6 Develop a parenting education programme to impact on children education from the womb.

#7 Reintroduce the Programme for the Advancement of childhood Education (PACE) to integrate resources for its development.

#8 Introduce computer education from the early childhood level.

#9 Mandatory attendance in primary and secondary schools using incentives and penalties for inexcusable delinquency.

#10 Intensify Maths and English curricula to ensure that all children are literate and numerate by grade three.

#11 Intensify teacher training in primary education specifically in subjects of Maths and English and require that all primary school teachers are trained.

#12 Extend National Assessment Programme (NAP) to include annual student testing at all grade levels including basic school.

#13 Improve and upgrade provision of lunch to students, especially poor students, to increase attendance, and vary school feeding options for students.

#14 Re-establish truant officers to visit non-attending student families and identify strategies for return.

#15 Create remedial literacy classes in schools to eliminate illiteracy.

#16 Extend school hours by one more hour for supervised homework and create resource rooms during school hours staffed with specialists to provide personalized attention.

#17 Extend school leaving age officially from 16 to 18 and intensify Maths and English in the high school Curriculum.

#18 Provide full and free education until age 18 by abolishing cost sharing.

#19 Provide equitable funding in secondary schools to enable schools in poor communities to have equal opportunities.

#20 Complete reform of secondary education by standardizing curriculum in all schools to age 15. Abolish all-age departments of primary schools by transforming them into junior secondary schools and then eventually to secondary schools.

#21 Review the curriculum to intensify vocational training, entrepreneurship and personal financial management skills to foster a culture of entrepreneurship and saving.

#22 Review the curriculum to include life skills (particularly nutrition) and character education. Character education would include instruction and testing in respect, responsibility, trustworthiness, caring attitude fairness and citizenship.

#23 Introduce performance incentives at all level for teachers and schools.

Improve Funding for Tertiary Education

#24 Extend the moratorium period for student loans to tertiary institutions, extend repayment, and introduce a graduated loan repayment programme to gradually increase repayments from minimum to maximum levels over the years.

#25 Introduce a programme of community or Government service as a repayment option to encourage graduates to serve their communities (e.g., by teaching in the inner city or poor rural area school).

#26 To improve loan repayments: require payroll deduction by employers where possible and improve methods of tracking delinquents to collect arrears or impose sanctions.

Expand Training Opportunities

#27 Expand the number of HEART academies (e.g., build a new IT academy in Mandeville and a tourism academy in Montego Bay).

#28 Restore the HEART training from six months to the original one-year period.

#29 Formalize and strengthen relationships with JAMAL, churches and schools idle during the summer to provide expertise and space for literacy classes for children and adults as well.

#30 Establish a high school equivalency exam (similar to GED in the US) to be offered also in prisons.

#31 Provide parents with the performance results of their children and school in the NAP to raise the accountability of schools.

#32 Reduce the average teacher to pupil ratio from 1:35 to 1:25 to ensure that students receive adequate attention and focus.

#33 Ensure that guidance counselors are assigned to all primary schools and a basic schools to identify students in need of greater emotional support and guidance.

#34 Work towards ensuring that every school has at least one qualified guidance counselor and that bereavement counseling is part of guidance counselor training.

#35 Ensure that all students are covered by health insurance.

#36 Include community service as a mandatory part of the curriculum from rimary school through tertiary level.

#37 Ensure that instructors at Teachers’ Colleges have at least a Master’s Degree. Include special education and peace education theory and practice as an integrated part of teacher training programmes.

#38 Increase student exposure to arts and music through increased collaboration with the IOJ, Jamaica Cultural Development Commission, other museums, the Ministry of Tourism, and other strategic government entities.

#39 Provide intensive use of wireless computer technology to enrich the curriculum.

#40 Increase the use of television, radio, and newspapers as effective teaching tools in schools and train teachers how to use these tools to facilitate learning.

#41 Increase the capital budget in education to finance a school upgrading programme to:

(1) build new basic schools.

(2) expand and improve school buildings and grounds.

(3) provide proper desks, books, and other computers facilities.

(4) expand secondary schools as required to accommodate additional space for the 16-18 age group as necessary.

(5) ensure that all schools have adequate sporting equipment including playgrounds for physical education, as well as materials for music and art.

#42 Implement a pilot project to determine the feasibility of introducing school zoning to reduce travel time.

#43 Increase the education budget by 50% from 10% to 15% of the total budget

COST IMPLICATIONS

The JLP LEARN Programme will cost $5.7 Billion

in Capital Expenditure and $2.3 annually

 Build 70 new Infant Schools 3.0

-Upgrade Basic Schools to Infant Schools 1.5

-Upgrade (10,000) teachers .7

-Upgrade Secondary Schools to accommodate

additional 16-18 year old students .204 .156

-Equalize funding of traditional High Schools

and upgraded Secondary Schools .6

-Eliminate Cost Sharing (tuition) in Secondary

and High Schools .58

-Eliminate BasicSchool fees (Equalizing to pre-trained

teachers salary level) .8

-Other items .3 .2

TOTAL 5.704 2.3

The average cost of domestic debt is 16% long term tax-free financing. At lower cost, depending on market conditions, would save an average of 7% or $1.4 Billion in $20 Billion of new loans annually.

Cumulatively, over 5 years the total funding would be Ja$21 Billion or Ja$4.2 Billion per annum,

Sufficient to cover the annual recurrent cost of Ja$2.3 Billion and some capital costs:

Bond Financing

Recurrent Cost

Surplus available for Capital

Shortfall

Shortfall per annum over 5 years

The shortfall of $.76B will be met from HEART surpluses.

A LEARN Trust will be established to receive and disburse funds for the programme to

Ensure that the financing is separated from central government revenues and expenditure

This avoids any misdirection of the funds. Membership of the LEARN that would include

Private sector financial representatives and teachers.

To finance the LEARN Plan, the JLP will float a long-term, tax free international bond aimed at using the proceeds to re-finance existing high cost debt. The JLP will use the savings from the refinancing to fund the Education Reform Plan.

The JLP will promote and expand Jamaica’s rich culture and heritage and promote greater cultural awareness among the Jamaican people.

Cultural Enrichment Plan

#1 Establish an Institute of Design to encourage and develop talent in product design in packaging.

#2 Launch a public broadcasting network to promote public education, sports, culture, art, music and cultural heritage.

#3 Revitalize Jamaica Festival and expand with new features.

#4 Promote cultural development at the community level.

#5 EstablishHEARTAcademy for the Entertainment arts to attract and develop the most talented and gifted youngsters from community cultural development programmes.

#6 Promote the development of archaeological heritage sites in Port Royal, Seville, Port Antonio, and Falmouth.

#7 Upgrade and expand the National Library to include high speed on-line internet access.

#8 Establish a modern museum of Jamaican Music and Dance.

#9 Establish a new NationalMuseum of Jamaica in the Heritage Buildings in the SpanishTown (Emancipation) Square.

#10 Revive Things Jamaican as a design and training institution for crafts to broaden the range of craft products.

#11 Expand the Culture Agents in Schools programme to all schools and relevant community institutions to train teachers and community workers in promoting Jamaica’s cultural heritage among young people.

#12 Revise the educational curriculum in teacher training colleges (and use teacher workshops) to promote cultural awareness and the use of the cultural arts such as music, art and performance in teaching methods.

#13 Establish a formal programme of collaboration with the Private Sector Organization of Jamaica to promote and fund cultural activities and the use of cultural motifs in private sector logos, slogans and architecture.

#14 Promote development of local art by providing tax and customs relief to bona fide artists who import specialized artistic equipment, and on imported art for exhibition purposes.

 #15 Provide special legislation to protect artists, promote training and provide access to social benefits such as credit union membership.

#16 Increase ethnographic research, memory bank documentation and preservation efforts, as well as museum development and maintenance to support ongoing training of cultural practitioners and attract and keep new professionals into the field.

#17 Review existing legislation and promote new legislation that ensures the protection of Jamaica’s patrimony, ensuring access of all Jamaicans to nationally identified cultural sites and the protection of cultural property from unlawful sale or destruction, as well as the maintenance of cultural heritage integrity amongst tourism and related efforts.

#18 Work with communities to identify suitable facilities for cultural activities.

#19 Actively promote the development of a local aesthetic by using Jamaican art in murals, signs, and paintings in public spaces.

#20 Regularize and actively enforce legislation regulating the use of billboards and other signage in public spaces to prevent defacement, especially in tourist towns.

Sports Development Plan

The JLP will improve the opportunities for Jamaica’s athletes to fully develop their physical and sporting abilities to the highest levels and for young Jamaicans to have enhanced recreational outlets.

Sports Development Plan

#1 Convert the GC Foster College to an academy for physical training and sports development to train:

(1) coaches to certificate level (2) sports teachers for schools (3) national teams where necessary (4) gifted young trainees.

This academy will also serve as the national team base for specific sports, e.g, football.

#2 Institute a formal programme to recruit, train and provide incentives for coaches to work in rural areas and inner cities.

#3 Develop and build international standard mini-stadiums in large population centres.

#4 Establish in each parish facilities for sports using small courts, such as basketball and netball, which can be located in many small towns, villages and communities.

#5 Launch a major scholarship programme for talented athletes in a wide range of sports and for training young, gifted athletes.

#6 Implement a supplementary scholarship programme to provide additional financial resources to athletic scholarship recipients to cover additional living nd educational expenses not typically covered by the limited existing scholarships.