Petrina Francis, Staff Reporter
A GOVERNMENT Review of its policy of hiring new teachers' college graduates as principals of early childhood institutions should be urgently placed on the table according to Ruel Reid, president of the Jamaica Teachers Association (JTA).
"The importance of early childhood education must be recognised so you cannot be putting inexperienced persons to run these institutions," Mr. Reid told The Gleaner yesterday.
He added: "Government should not be facilitating and encouraging this kind of poor level of management in schools."
According to the JTA president, the proper channels should be followed where teachers are to be employed as principals. He noted that their terms of employment should be in line with the code of regulations and be appropriated by the Teachers' Services Commission.
INEFFECTIVE MEASURES
Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller has committed to focus on early childhood education this year. But Mr. Reid said the Government has been using ineffective measures to run early childhood institutions. He noted that this has been the practice for years and it is still not working.
"We need to approach early childhood development with the professionalism that it deserves," he said.
However, when contacted yesterday, Dorrett Campbell, director of communications in the Education Ministry, disputed Mr. Reid's claim that new graduates are placed in early childhood institutions as principals.
Ms. Campbell said the Education Ministry has a policy through which it is placing at least one trained teacher in early childhood institutions. She said some institutions are privately run and it is the owners who are giving teachers positions as principals.
"We send them there to teach, not for administrative duties," Ms. Campbell said.
