Petrina Francis, Staff Reporter

The Ministry of Education and Youth is in the process of creating a national education inspectorate to track the performance of the island's more than 1,000 public schools.

According to Frank Weeple, executive director of the Education Transformation Team, the independent inspectorate will supervise, evaluate, make recommendations and ensure they are implemented. Mr. Weeple said the inspectorate will be of a high quality and will draw on experienced educators who will be trained in modern inspection techniques.

Speaking recently with The Sunday Gleaner, Mr. Weeple said his team was in the process of recruiting a chief inspector who will guide the process. He noted that after this process was completed, consultants who have been hired to assist with the modernisation of the ministry will formulate the inspectorate.

Mr. Weeple said not all schools will be inspected with the same degree of frequency. More comprehensive inspections will be given to schools which are performing poorly. In the past, a panel inspection comprising specialist senior teachers was conducted every three years. Each education officer or panel designed its own schedule for visits, but all schools within every region was empanelled once every three years as outlined by the Education Act.

But Mr. Weeple disclosed that one of the issues with inspection in the past was that there was not enough follow-up. Under the proposed national inspectorate literacy coordinators will be put in schools. A national literacy coordinator has been appointed to oversee the process - in keeping with the Task Force on Education which recommended that literacy coordinators be appointed to schools.

The executive director said the programme will be done on a phased basis and will initially be in grades one to three "because we know very well that there are students entering grade seven without being ableto read," he said.

Email: petrina.francis@gleanerjm.commm